I am proud to have been born in Iowa. Through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy, it was a place of adventure and daily discoveries – the wonder of the growing crops, the excitements of the harvest, the journeys to the woods for nuts and hunting, the joys of snowy winters, the comfort of the family fireside, of good food and tender care.

I have 22 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and they keep me young.

Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World.

I’ve always wanted a baby.

I made a decision when my father passed away that I was going to be who God made me to be and not try to preach like my father.

Nature is wont to hide herself.

I’m German in my mind, but from a Germany that doesn’t exist any more.

People who work for me know that family comes first. And I’m fortunate to have a family that is very supportive of the work I do, so I don’t have to live two separate lives.

I just want to go through Central Park and watch folks passing by. Spend the whole day watching people. I miss that.

Everything is political. I will never be a politician or even think political. Me just deal with life and nature. That is the greatest thing to me.

Well, the odds must be against anybody being able to fly around the world in a balloon on the first attempt. All of us who are attempting to go around the world in balloons are effectively flying in experimental craft because these craft cannot be tested.

I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.

I take my kids to school. And if I go to work, I go to work, and they visit me on set. I come home. I have dinner with my family. I have breakfast with my family. I have a very solid, very warm home.

My next baby will be my new record.

Letters are something from you. It’s a different kind of intention than writing an e-mail.

If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.

Trees go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!

Amazon.com strives to be the e-commerce destination where consumers can find and discover anything they want to buy online.

We cannot command Nature except by obeying her.

It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.

I grew up upper-class. Private school. My dad had a Jaguar. We’re African-American, and we work together as a family, so people assume we’re like the Jacksons. But I didn’t have parents using me to get out of a bad situation.

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.

Death, like birth, is a secret of Nature.

I’m gonna go hard no matter what because I gotta feed my family, and I gotta feed myself.

If I were a woman, I would love to have lots of kids. But for men, I don’t believe in it.

We’re one of the only animals in the world that don’t really think of ourselves as animals, but we are animals, and we must respect our fellow animals.

My mom was a terrible parent of young children. And thank God – I thank God every time I think of it – I was sent to my paternal grandmother. Ah, but my mother was a great parent of a young adult.

One of the greatest lessons of my own life was learning to turn the inner rampage of hatred and anger toward my own father for his reprehensible behavior and abandonment of his family into an inner reaction more closely aligned with God and God-realized love.

My sisters like cooking at my place. It has a bit more room, and the food tastes a little bit better. A big pot of spaghetti and sauce, some warm French bread – works all the time. I think I’ve been eating pasta for 26 years.

I’ve always been a bit of a gypsy.

Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience.

I love my daddy. My daddy’s everything. I hope I can find a man that will treat me as good as my dad.

Haitian rice farmers are quite efficient, but they can’t compete with U.S. agribusiness that relies on a huge government subsidy, thanks to Ronald Reagan’s free market enthusiasms.

My mom is very religious – Catholic – and from a young age they brought me to the church.

A wounded deer leaps the highest.

Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret.

I think about my own sons and my own daughters, and I’m sure that many parents are concerned about what their children are exposed to.

When I was ten, I won the horseshoe-throwing contest at summer camp. I was also the Wiffle ball champion in my town.

If people think nature is their friend, then they sure don’t need an enemy.

I am a generous man, by nature, and far more trusting than I should be. Indeed. The real world is risky territory for people with generosity of spirit. Beware.

Sowing is not as difficult as reaping.

The mother of a family should look upon her housekeeping and the planning of meals as a scientific occupation.

Always have something beautiful in sight, even if it’s just a daisy in a jelly glass.

I remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays… and my father used to wait outside. One of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God. For me, at least, it got in the way.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

The best thing about being a dad? Well, I think it’s just the thing that every man wants – to have a son and heir.

I think, because I started Virgin when I was a teenager, it has become a part of me, like my family, and I am motivated by ambition for it, almost as if it were a child.

I found that part of it towards San Salvador extending from north to south five leagues, and the other side which we coasted along, ran from east to west more than ten leagues.

The Edge… there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.

I have a family, loving aunts, and a good home. No, on the surface I seem to have everything except my one true friend. All I think about when I’m with friends is having a good time. I can’t bring myself to talk about anything but ordinary everyday things. We don’t seem to be able to get any closer, and that’s the problem.

My message, especially to young people is to have courage to think differently, courage to invent, to travel the unexplored path, courage to discover the impossible and to conquer the problems and succeed. These are great qualities that they must work towards. This is my message to the young people.

There is a great discovery still to be made in literature, that of paying literary men by the quantity they do not write.

I learned to read very early so I could read the comics, which I then started to draw.

I am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum.

When I write about a 15-year old, I jump, I return to the days when I was that age. It’s like a time machine. I can remember everything. I can feel the wind. I can smell the air. Very actually. Very vividly.

The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.

Perhaps, as some wit remarked, the best proof that there is Intelligent Life in Outer Space is the fact it hasn’t come here. Well, it can’t hide forever – one day we will overhear it.

Sponges grow in the ocean. That just kills me. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be if that didn’t happen.

When we think of the major threats to our national security, the first to come to mind are nuclear proliferation, rogue states and global terrorism. But another kind of threat lurks beyond our shores, one from nature, not humans – an avian flu pandemic.

All cartoon characters and fables must be exaggeration, caricatures. It is the very nature of fantasy and fable.

I always wanted to do what my brothers were doing. I always wanted to play the games they played and play rough and wear pants and go outside.