“The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.”

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”

“I write to discover what I think”

“I have observed that the world has suffered far less from ignorance than from pretensions to knowledge. It is not skeptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress.”

“When I was living in England I found that the more I lived abroad, the more American I discovered I was.”

“[Reading is like] the sex act—done privately, and often in bed.”

“A wonderful thing about a book, in contrast to a computer screen, is that you can take it to bed with you.”