There is not a passion so strongly rooted in the human heart as envy.

Egad, I think the interpreter is the hardest to be understood of the two!

Certainly nothing is unnatural that is not physically impossible.

The newspapers! Sir, they are the most villainous — licentious — abominable — infernal — Not that I ever read them — no — I make it a rule never to look into a newspaper.

And yet their reward appear not, and their labor had no fruit: for I have gone here and there through the heathen, and I see that they flow in wealth, and think not upon thy commandments.

Any government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship's captain has to avoid a shipw

There was no doubt about it: the City was the culmination of man’s mastery over the environment. Not space travel, not the fifty colonized worlds that were now so haughtily independent, but the City.

There is life after abuse. This is mine.

Engagement is the good life. What could be more exciting than getting involved in something that you care about and joining with others and seeing something change? What could be more thrilling?

The language of sin was universal, the original Esperanto.

I listen to Bach a great deal. In general I like to listen to hymns and liturgical music.

People want to see the car crash instead of the race. But, when you're the one in the car that's crashing, it's not much fun. I'm enjoying the race.

I know that I am essentially a sort of fun-loving person who really just wants to sit around and eat pies.

I resist thinking of myself as a teacher. I think of myself as a writer who has pulled a fast one and hoodwinked this institution into giving me a job and health insurance.