To evade arrogance, remind yourself (from time to time) that your talent or success could have been better. To be thankful, remind yourself (every now and then) that your illness or failure could have been worse.

Some mistakes are worse than others: wearing your underwear inside out isn’t as uncomfortable as wearing it back to front.

The real purpose of the opposition is to minimize the amount of money the ruling party will have stolen from the people at the end of its term.

In reality most human beings are not, to most human beings, more important than money.

Plants are more courageous than almost all human beings: an orange tree would rather die than produce lemons, whereas instead of dying the average person would rather be someone they are not.

Some writers write to forget. Some forget to write.

It is usually unbearably painful to read a book by an author who knows way less than you do, unless the book is a novel.

You are more likely to find three TVs inside a randomly selected house than you are to find a single book that is or was not read to pass an exam, to please God, or to be a better cook.

Some of the people who hate me love some of the sentences that I have written, until they get to the name of the person to whom the sentences are attributed.