There are people who would love to spend their last ten years, or five years, or whatever it is, on the surface of Mars.

You are a person and then you cease to be a person, and a cadaver takes your place.

I dont fear death so much as I fear its prologues: loneliness, decrepitude, pain, debilitation, depression, senility. After a few years of those, I imagine death presents like a holiday at the beach.

I began thinking about my skeleton, this solid, beautiful thing inside me that I would never see.

Instead, I quietly excused myself and went to the bar, to commune with spirits I know how to relate to.

The suffix 'naut' comes from the Greek and Latin words for ships and sailing. Astronaut suggests 'a sailor in space.' Chimponaut suggests 'a chimpanzee in sailor pants'.

All the clothes in my closet are Oakland, California, clothes. You can't wear those anywhere else. The barometric pressure drops and then where are you?

Bodily fluids and solids are universally the most disgusting things we as human beings can come upon, but as long as they are inside us, it's part of you.

Sexual desire is a state not unlike hunger.

Many people will find this book disrespectful. There is nothing amusing about being dead, they will say. Ah, but there is.

Gravity disappears again, and we rise up off the floor like spooks from a grave. It's like the Rapture in here every thirty seconds.

We learn to do by doing.

To win, you have to believe you will win.

Is life worth living? Aye with the best of us Heights of us depths of us- Life is the test of us!

Two fundamental literary qualities: supernaturalism and irony.

Most teachers are not enlightened. Very few are. That doesn't mean they are not great teachers.

What we learned on September 11 is that the unthinkable is now thinkable in the world

Compared to 10 years ago the primary motivation for defection has gone from food, to freedom.

I'll never forgive myself if we don't go all the way tonight.

I still have highs and lows, just like any other person. What's missing is the lack of control over the super highs, which became destructive, and the super lows, which are immediately destructive.

He that thinks he can afford to be negligent is not far from being poor.