They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.

But the thing about remembering is that you don't forget.

With a hangover and with fear, it is difficult to put a helmet on your head.

They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity.

Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to.

Fiction is the lie that helps us understand the truth.

I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.

[Y]ou can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.

Laughter does not deny pain. Laughter - like a wail - acknowledges and replies to pain.

Why do our politicians put warnings on cigarette packs and not on their own foreheads?

It's a hard thing to explain to somebody who hasn't felt it, but the presence of death and danger has a way of bringing you fully awake. It makes things vivid.

You know there's got to be a better way of life - somewhere, sometime, somehow - but you're not exactly sure what better is.

Twitter is a serious writing distraction. As are grapefruits. The two have nothing else in common.

Don't try to understand me, just be grateful that you felt the warmth of Zaphod Beeblebrox's aura on your wonderstruck face.

Terrorism is one of the cardinal sins that the Koran threatens with hellfire.

I say to my colleague from New York that if someone who has a concealed carry permit... in the State of South Dakota that goes to New York and is in Central Park - Central Park is a much safer place.

Don't bring a prop. It's almost like they were afraid nobody would know who they are.

Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest.

My kids are in front of the computer 247 despite having all the parental control. There is no way to stop the flow of information. The flow of information is too fast and too much.

It's a happy relationship when it's easy and when there's that trust and love and no jealousy or games or anything.