Something that has always puzzled me all my life is why, when I am in special need of help, the good deed is usually done by somebody on whom I have no claim. - The Business of Life.

Rowe's Rule: the odds are five to six that the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.

When science finally locates the center of the universe, some people will be surprised to learn they're not it.

The rational individualist is not the enemy of benevolence or civility, but their truest exemplar.

Halfe the world knowes not how the other halfe lies.

Multimedia? As far as I'm concerned, it's reading with the radio on!

Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.

Every man ought to be inquisitive through every hour of his great adventure down to the day when he shall no longer cast a shadow in the sun. For if he dies without a question in his heart, what excuse is there for his continuance? - The Colby Essays.

If you can't say something nice, become a reporter.

Commemoration of Cecile Isherwood, Founder of the Community of the Resurrection, Grahamstown, South Africa, 1906 The problem of how an unholy concourse of sinful men and women can be in truth the body of Christ is the same as the problem of how a sinful man can at the same time be accepted as a child of God... Our present situation arises precisely from the fact that this fundamental insight, which the Reformers applied to the position of the Christian man, was not followed through in its application to the nature of the Christian church.

A reform is a correction of abuses; a revolution is a transfer of power.

I disagree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.

Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.

These are days when no one should rely unduly on his "competence." Strength lies in improvisation. All the decisive blows are struck left-handed.

On stage I make love to twenty five thousand people; and then I go home alone.

Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity.

The wise does at once what the fool does at last.

Commemoration of Douglas Downes, Founder of the Society of Saint Francis, 1957 Who seeks for heaven alone to save his soul May keep the path, but will not reach the goal; While he who walks in love may wander far, Yet God will bring him where the blessed are.

In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing. We lived at the junction of great trout rivers in western Montana, and our father was a Presbyterian minister and a fly fisherman who tied his own flies and taught others. He told us about Christ's disciples being fishermen, and we were to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.