how much of the fun of parenthood lay in watching the children remake, with delighted wonder, one's own discoveries.

In childhood the daylight always fails too soon - except when there are going to be fireworks.

For to love, loveless, is a bitter pill:But to be loved, unloving, bitterer still.

swans ... always look as though they'd just been reading their own fan-mail.

to achieve unity without uniformity is the whole essence of the democratic way of life.

Punctuality is the thief of adventure.

[Gardening] is a means by which you can attain many valuable hours of solitude without being thought unsociable.

The worst of gardening is that it's so full of metaphors one hardly knows where to begin.

It's just as important to marry the right life as the right person.

librarianship is one of the few callings in the world for which is it still possible to feel unqualified admiration and respect.

It took me forty years on earth To reach this sure conclusion: There is no Heaven but clarity, No Hell except confusion.

I don't think there's anything Craig Ferguson could say that would make me laugh. Ad-libbing is not the same as entertainment.

Countries are not like financial markets. Social change cannot be executed as swiftly as credit-default swaps. You cannot sell short on social commitments and practical responsibilities.

People are powerfully moved by imagination, belief, and knowledge. They can consider the past and future. They can make changes in their behavior out of reason, in a way that animals can’t do.

It's difficult for a society to have a healthy discourse on its future when people are afraid to gather to express themselves and authorities won't allow it.

Only through immitation do we develop toward originality.

Today Christians spend more money on dog food then missions

I mean, the competition is really created by the buzz around the Emmys. It's a totally subjective thing.

[Oz the Great] it's not like I had to imagine things, and as far as wire work goes, I had fun with it.

The removal of religion as history from our schoolbooks betrays the intellectual dishonesty of secular humanist educators and reveals their blind hostility to Christianity.

If there's grass in the field, play ball!