..she took pictures of germs, viruses, and people reacting to germs and viruses. On weekends, for extra money, she photographed weddings, which really wasn't that much of a stretch

The Greeks had invented democracy, built the Acropolis and called it a day.

Real love amounts to withholding the truth, even when you're offered the perfect opportunity to hurt someone's feelings.

A zoo is a good place to make a spectacle of yourself, as the people around you have creepier, more photogenic things to look at.

There seemed to be some correlation between devotion to God and a misguided zeal for marshmallows.

All of us take pride and pleasure in the fact that we are unique, but I'm afraid that when all is said and done the police are right: it all comes down to fingerprints.

Remember that the most important thing is to try and love other people as much as they love you.

Everyone looks retarded once you set your mind to it.

I started writing when I was twenty, and my first book came out seventeen years later.

Like all of my friends, she's a lousy judge of character.

A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit.

Another distraction that deviates people from their God given purpose and calling is the distraction of job and formal education.

Human inventions march from thecomplex to the simple, and simplicity is always perfection.

Now we're in an age of singles. It's actually always been more about singles for most of music history.

What is right may properly be uttered even twice.

I'm glad that I still have the ability to tour in Europe. I do love it.

I wasn't in any way a kind of soothsayer or not surprised when Sept. 11 happened. I was absolutely shocked.

Music isn't only a profession.

My donors have always tended to do much better than expected.

Painting constantly appeared to me as the one and only possible achievement.

It doesn't matter to me where Barack Obama goes. If he wants to go to Hawaii because it's his home state, fine! Hunky-dory. Plastic banana, good-time rock 'n' roller dittos.