The tearoom lady called me love. All the shop ladies called me love and most of the men called me mate. I hadn't been here twelve hours and already they loved me.

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.

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

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.

Lately the muse has been treating me like Ike treated Tina.

Thou shalt not follow someone, merely because they are following you.

Love and friendship exclude each other.

I never really said I wanted to be a TV star, when I was a kid.

I had the drive to pursue speedskating and I found a sport that I was good at. If I'd got into cycling, I would just be another has been.

All knowledge, the totality of all questions and answers, is contained in the dog.

I don't walk around with fear. I walk around with strength. I believe in cause and effect.

You learn how to do good work by being honest with yourself.

The sense of beauty is intuitive, and beauty itself is all that inspires pleasure without, and aloof from, and even contrarily to interest.

I exercise strong self control. I never drink anything stronger than gin before breakfast.