Science is wonderfully equipped to answer the question 'How?' but it gets terribly confused when you ask the question 'Why?'

The closing of a door can bring blessed privacy and comfort - the opening, terror. Conversely, the closing of a door can be a sad and final thing - the opening a wonderfully joyous moment.

Men who love their mothers treat women wonderfully. And they have enormous respect for women.

Out of all the ridiculous religion stories - which are greatly, wonderfully ridiculous - the silliest one I've ever heard is, 'Yeah, there's this big, giant universe, and it's expanding, and it's all going to collapse on itself, and we're all just here, just 'cuz. Just 'cuz.' That to me, is the most ridiculous explanation ever.

Laughter is an important part of a good relationship. It's an immense achievement when you can move from your thinking that your partner is merely an idiot to thinking that they are that wonderfully complex thing called a loveable idiot. And often that means having a little bit of a sense of humour about their flaws.

And my father was a comic. He could play any musical instrument. He loved to perform. He was a wonderfully comedic character. He had the ability to dance and sing and charm and analyze poetry.

I did know Ted Hughes and I partly wrote the book to explain to myself and others the complexities of a marriage that was for six years wonderfully productive of poetry and then ended in tragedy.

The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.

Academics tend to have wonderfully infantile senses of humor.

The space and light up there in Norfolk is wonderfully peaceful. I find myself doing funny things like gardening, and cooking, which I rarely do in London.

It's because finance is so baffling that makes being an economist such a safe option. It nestles down comfortably with psychiatry and astrology as a profession where getting it patently wrong is just not a problem - and also, rather wonderfully, seems to have no adverse affect on their professional standing whatsoever.

I've discovered that Motown and Broadway have a lot in common - a family of wonderfully talented, passionate, hardworking young people, fiercely competitive but also full of love and appreciation for the work, for each other and for the people in the audience.

You can be in love and raise a family wonderfully by not being married, but actually, marriage does give us a strength, because it's quite hard to get out of, and so it makes us fight more to keep it together. If divorce becomes dead easy - which it sort of has - then we don't have that backup. Because, for everybody, relationships are hard.

I had to go on the strict caveman diet where you eat only vegetables, chicken, and egg whites. This diet in many ways sounds right to me, and it has worked wonderfully.

Berluti, we manufacture wonderfully successful sneakers, which I'm proud of. But I certainly don't forget the beauty we have to cultivate, the prestige of Venezia leather bespoke shoes, because this is a unique know-how that does not exist anywhere else.

It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.

I am definitely a Type A personality, always rushing around, trying to do too much, not good at just lying on the beach. But I'm so thankful for everything I have: wonderfully supportive parents and sisters, the best husband in the world, terrific students I love teaching and hanging out with, and above all, my two amazing daughters.

This phenomenon with Betty White is so wonderfully amazing. In a world where ageism runs rampant, out of left field, all of a sudden, the country decides to celebrate Betty White, and she becomes cool at 90. That's remarkable.

"The only good teachers for you are those friends who love you, who think you are interesting, or very important, or wonderfully funny; whose attitude is:

When enough insane people scream in harmony that they really are healthy, they can actually start to believe themselves. Or put even more simply: people with overlapping delusions get along wonderfully.

There comes a point in time when we must acknowledge that we are more than our nationality, and we are bigger than our ethnicity. There comes a time when we have an aha moment. What is that aha moment? It's sort of like a revelation. A revelation is when we put all the pieces together to see the bigger picture. When we see the bigger picture, we can see ourselves through the realm of reality and truth. The truth is we belong to a blood family that is connected to a tribal community, and this community is big and bright and bold with life, and we should be proud of the ties to blood that each of us has. We should not play small and reduce our human nature-for we are all connected. We belong to something bigger and more expansive. We belong to life itself. Always remember that you are more than an American (as wonderfully dramatic as that can be). Together, we make up the collective of great. ...And this is good.

God is the reason I'm surviving, but he's sure used you in my life wonderfully. I love you.

Make the choice to embrace this day. Do not let your TODAY be stolen by the ghost of yesterday or the "To-Do" list of tomorrow! It's inspiring to see all the wonderfully amazing things that can happen in a day in which you participate.

Our lives are not as limited as we think they are; the world is a wonderfully weird place; consensual reality is significantly flawed; no institution can be trusted, but love does work; all things are possible; and we all could be happy and fulfilled if we only had the guts to be truly free and the wisdom to shrink our egos and quit taking ourselves so damn seriously.