"Like most experts, I've always defined a planet in common-sense terms: Can you beam down to it? Is it populated by green-skinned women? Would Galactus eat it for food?"

“So long as you refuse to ever acknowledge failure, success becomes eternal, a downward curve, always approaching failure, but never quite reaching it.”

“Generally speaking, I think it is fair to say that I am a friend to the creatures of the Earth when I am not busy eating them or wearing them.”

“Americans don't need a metaphor for war. We have war.”

“And parents, some old fashioned kitchen wisdom for dealing with those lice: take your child and cover his hair with mayonnaise and shove him outside because he disgraced your house by bringing lice into it.”

“Look at Dick Cheney. Financially he's obscenely wealthy, but he's clearly unhappy. I wouldn't be surprised if he's visited by no less than three ghosts a night.”

“Truth may be stranger than fiction, goes the old saw, but it is never as strange as lies.”