Human beings may separate things into as many piles as we wish - separating spirit from flesh, sacred from secular, church from world. But we should not be surprised when God does not recognize the...

And yet it was not authentic, of course, because no real boardwalk of 1910 had been this perfect. It was like a fondly remembered nostalgic confection, a past sanitized of its imperfections,...

On the one hand, forcing other people to clean up our mess violates basic notions of fairness. On the other hand, actually preventing climate-change problems would require societies today to make...

These ideas might have been expected to draw fire from Hubbert's employer - he had become second-in-command at a big Shell Oil research center in Houston. But they attracted little notice until 1956

In all of history, humankind has been able to domesticate only twenty-five mammals, a dozen or so birds, and, possibly, a lizard.

But how could he admire Joyce's lengthy, libidinal 'yes' so fervently and end up saying 'no' to his own life? I suppose that a lifetime spent hiding one's erotic truth could have a cumulative...

Too unconcerned to love and too passionless to hate, too detached to be selfish and too lifeless to be unselfish, too indifferent to experience joy and too cold to express sorrow, they are neither...

A bullet hole in my bedroom door was a grim reminder of December 7, 1941, and of an entire nation which had not been sufficiently awake…

Bigotry practiced by those outside the race was harmful enough without bigotry being meted out by those within.

What role was she expected to play in his life, and more important, in her own?

Olivia handed Cara the bowl of ice cream. You finish it. Life would be so much easier if Malloy would go out onto the plains and let himself be eaten by a bear.

My life has been of but little worth mostly filled up with vanity.

I will accept the idea that I dreamed of you – he said. Because the truth is that I’ve known you by sight for a long time, but I like you more when I dream of you. Then I do whatever I want with...

"I don't love him," Suzette muttered. Lisa looked at her with patent disbelief. "Suzette, you have been following the man around like a puppy for days now. And if you do not love him, you are...

In short, the fragilista {medical, economic, social planning} is one who makes you engage in policies and actions, all artificial, in which the benefits are small and visible, and the side effects...

You have a real life if and only if you do not compete with anyone in any of your pursuits

There is an element of deceit associated with interventionism, accelerating in a professionalized society. It's much easier to sell "Look what I did for you" than "Look what I avoided for you." Of...

You cannot do anything with knowledge unless you know where it stops, and the costs of using it.

If both the positive and the negative consequences of an action fell on its author, our learning would be fast. But often an action's positive consequences benefit only its author, since they are...

Humans will believe anything you say provided you do not exhibit the smallest shadow of diffidence; like animals, they can detect the smallest crack in your confidence before you express it. The trick...

A theory is like medicine or government: often useless, sometimes necessary, always self-serving and, on occasion, lethal. It needs to be used with care, moderation and close adult supervision.

Nation-states resemble war; city-states resemble commerce; families resemble stability; and individuals resemble entertainment

Never ask anyone for their opinion, forecast, or recommendation. Just ask them what they have - or don't have - in their portfolio.

Ideas come and go, stories stay.

I don't know if you've ever felt like that. That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years. Or just not exist. Or just not be aware that you do exist.

When people who run bureaucracies balk at change, they are usually acting in the service of what they think is right. Many of the rules that people find onerous and bureaucratic were put in place to...

The overplanners just take longer to be wrong and, when things inevitably go awry, are more crushed by the feeling that they have failed.

If you achieve perfection, you die.

Although they are often ready to play the fool to amuse you, such conduct is the prerogative of the truly wise.

We have had a good time while we were young, but it is in the nature of Time to fly.