“If there is anyone who owes everything to Bach, it is certainly God.”

“Bach: a scale of tears upon which our desires for God ascend.”

“You request me to tell you…if it is true that the creed of all who profess to love high and serious art is: "There is no God but Bach, and Mendelssohn is his prophet?"”

“I owe everything I am and everything I will ever be to books.”

“God help anyone who messes with the Virals!”

“Do your best. That's all you can ask of yourself. If you did your best and things just didn't work out, you don't owe an apology to anyone. And you certainly don't need to feel 'bad' about it -- or, worse yet, guilty.”

“Everything you see I owe to spaghetti.”

“God once had Bach and Michelangelo on his side, he had Mozart, and now who does he have? People with ginger whiskers and tinted spectacles who reduce the glories of theology to a kind of sharing.”

“We certainly shouldn't trust to deal with [Saddam Hussein] anyone who supported him through his worst crimes, that's insane.”

“Anyone must be mainly ignorant or thoughtless, who is surprised at everything he sees; or wonderfully conceited who expects everything to conform to his standard of propriety.”