“Nanny's philosophy of life was to do what seemed like a good idea at the time, and do it as hard as possible. It had never let her down.”

“Mays always told me how hard it was to get a hit off me and every time I looked up, he was on second base. Yet, even with Mays, I had an idea what to do. When I pitched to Clemente and Aaron, I had no idea. They seemed to hit everything.”

“"You try very hard to make up for something that was never your fault. […] You didn't choose this kind of life, and yet you have to work so hard to be good."
"I don't know that I'm making up for anything," he disagreed lightly. "Like everything in life, I just had to decide what to do with what I was given."”

“I guess the real reason that my wife and I had children is the same reason that Napoleon had for invading Russia: it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“No matter what you or anyone else does, there will be someone who says that there's something bad about it. Whenever somebody comes up with a good idea, there's somebody else who has never had a good idea in his life who stands up and says, "Oh, you can't do that…"”

“If you are willing to do only what’s easy, life will be hard. But if you are willing to do what’s hard, life will be easy.”

“We trolls say: “Make Philosophy your evening guest, but do not let her stay the night.””

“She quarreled with the nanny and accused her of brushing Misha's teeth sideways rather than up and down.”

“I began in 1976, with small abstract paintings that allowed me to do what I had never let myself do: put something down at random. And then, of course, I realized that it never can be random. It was all a way of opening a door for me. If I don't know what's coming – that is, if I have no hard-and-fast image, as I have with a photographic original – then arbitrary choice and chance play an important part.”

“Why are you in such a rush?" Sophia asked, and her grandmother answered that it was a good idea to do things before you forgot that they had to be done.”