I could spend my life arriving each evening in a new city.
If a potato can produce vitamin C, why can’t we? Within the animal kingdom only humans and guinea pigs are unable to synthesize vitamin C in their own bodies. Why us and guinea pigs? No point asking. Nobody knows.
There is always a little more toothpaste in the tube. Think about it.
There are three stages in scientific discovery. First, people deny that it is true, then they deny that it is important; finally they credit the wrong person.
It is a slightly arresting notion that if you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound of fine atomic dust, none of which had ever been alive but all of which had once been you.
Language is more fashion than science, and matters of usage, spelling and pronunciation tend to wander around like hemlines.
If you can imagine a man having a vasectomy without anesthetic to the sound of frantic sitar-playing, you will have some idea of what popular Turkish music is like.
Four times I was honked at for having the temerity to proceed through town without the benefit of metal.
Making English grammar conform to Latin rules is like asking people to play baseball using the rules of football.
Eating in Sweden is really just a series of heartbreaks.
I come Des Moines. Somebody had to.
I love everything about motels. I can’t help myself. I still get excited every time I slip a key into a motel room door and fling it open.
I have long known that it is part of God’s plan for me to spend a little time with each of the most stupid people on earth.
Consider the Lichen. Lichens are just about the hardiest visible organisms on Earth, but the least ambitious.
Protons give an atom its identity, electrons its personality.
I mused for a few moments on the question of which was worse, to lead a life so boring that you are easily enchanted, or a life so full of stimulus that you are easily bored.
I’m not a natural story-teller. Put a keyboard in front of me and I’m fine, but stand me up in front of an audience and I’m actually quite shy and reserved.
I don’t know whether I’m misanthropic. It seems to me I’m constantly disappointed. I’m very easily disappointed.
I can’t imagine there has ever been a more gratifying time or place to be alive than America in the 1950s. No country had ever known such prosperity.
I always wanted to do a baseball book; I love baseball. The problem is that a very large part of my following is in non-baseball playing countries.