That's the trouble with losing your mind; by the time it's gone, it's too late to get it back.

I can't think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything.

There are only three things that can kill a farmer: lightning, rolling over in a tractor, and old age.

If you can imagine a man having a vasectomy without anesthetic to the sound of frantic sitar-playing, you will have some idea of what popular Turkish music is like.

Hunters will tell you that a moose is a wily and ferocious forest creature. Nonsense. A moose is a cow drawn by a three-year-old.

Geologists are never at a loss for paperweights.

Of all the things I am not very good at, living in the real world is perhaps the most outstanding.

Physics is really nothing more than a search for ultimate simplicity, but so far all we have is a kind of elegant messiness.

Protons give an atom its identity, electrons its personality.

Why is it, I wondered, that old people are always so self-centered and excitable? But I just smiled benignly and stood back, comforted by the thought that soon they would be dead.

Language is more fashion than science, and matters of usage, spelling and pronunciation tend to wander around like hemlines.

The bad gains respect through imitation, the good loses it especially in art.

Possessions of this world have not been for the exclusive use by such or such category of individuals.

You need to be in a church where the pastors are urging you, not so much to listen to what they say as to turn to the Bible from which they teach.

No one in my writers' room can wear sweatpants.

Since man's natural instincts lead him to sin, all men are sinners; and all sinners go to hell. If everyone goes to hell, then you will meet all your friends there.

A lot of people have many misconceptions about religion. I know what I'm talking about for myself. My mind is very ordered, so to speak. I need to put things in order.

Everything I did was practical. You have to strip things down and get to the practical stuff.

When we put someone in our jail cell of hatred, we are stuck guarding the door.

Whatever future you're building, don't try to program everything.

Someone who cannot stop his outer flow of words will soon be unable to communicate with other human beings at all.