The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend.

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.

Of my fifty-seven years I have applied at least thirty to forgetting most of what I have learned or read. Since then, I have acquired a certain ease and cheer which I should never again like to be without. (…) I have stored little in my memory, but I can apply that little, and it is of use in many and varied emergencies. I keep it in order, but resist every attempt to increase its dead weight.

I noticed that all the prayers I used to offer to God, and all the prayers I now offer to Joe Pesci, are being answered at about the same 50% rate. Half the time I get what I want, half the time I don’t… Same as the four-leaf clover and the horseshoe…same as the Voodoo Lady who tells you your fortune by squeezing the goat’s testicles, it’s all the same: 50-50. So just pick your superstition, sit back, make a wish, and enjoy yourself.

Philosophy, astronomy, and politics were marked at zero, I remember. Botany variable, geology profound as regards the mud stains from any region within fifty miles of town, chemistry eccentric, anatomy unsystematic, sensational literature and crime records unique, violin player, boxer, swordsman, lawyer, and self-poisoner by cocaine and tobacco.

It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design.