“The most useful thing I could do before this meeting is to keel over. On the other hand, artists are keeling over by the thousands every day and nobody seems to pay the least attention.”

“A girl phoned me the other day and said, 'Come on over. There's nobody home.' I went over. Nobody was home.”

“James Buchanan made a great statement on behalf of the right of revolution. Grant restored the gold standard. Harding denounced US imperialism in Haiti. But overall, my favorite president is William Henry Harrison. He keeled over shortly after his inauguration.”

“Clearly the most unfortunate people are those who must do the same thing over and over again, every minute, or perhaps twenty to the minute. They deserve the shortest hours and the highest pay.”

“Think of every single thing that we 'have to' do to get through a day as something that we 'get to' do… before our turn is over.

Everything is a gift.”

“Over seven thousand US veterans die of suicide every year, which is funny… [false laughter]… because you'd think they'd die over there, but they come home! Right? I thought that must be funny, because nobody was taking it that seriously.”

“Love words, agonize over sentences. And pay attention to the world.”

“The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.”

“The most dangerous thing about an academic education is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract thinking instead of simply paying attention to what’s going on in front of me.”

“To die every day to every problem, every pleasure, and not carry over any problem at all; so the mind remains tremendously attentive, active, clear.”