"I think that people who live in cultures without quite so much privilege, opportunity or grandiosity have a little bit more respect for the workings of destiny, and the limitations that people can find themselves in through no fault of their own."

"Unfenced by law, the unmarried lover can quit a bad relationship at any time. But you - the legally married person who wants to escape doomed love - may soon discover that a significant portion of your marriage contract belongs to the State, and that it sometimes takes a very long while for the State to grant you your leave."

"I think it's unfortunate that there exists only one path in America to complete social legitimacy, and that is marriage. I think, for instance, that it would be far easier for Americans to elect a black president or a female president than an unmarried president."

"I know I'm not a self-indulgent idiot I also know I'm not the second coming of Deepak Chopra. If I had believed either of those, or both, as some people do when they get famous, that's when the mental illness arrives."

"Wisdom principle 22 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 19."

"Nothing leads so straight to futility as literary ambitions without systematic knowledge."

"Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age."

"It is a unyielding truth that do not wait for favorable winds; take the oars and row toward your horizon."