“The ability to arrive uninvited in an alien land and convince one’s hosts that almost everything they believe is wrong requires a rather forceful personality.”

“If you've ever thought, 'The new Times Square is delightful but would be even better if it were more claustrophobic and nearly impossible to leave', the Aguas Calientes is calling your name”

“I remembered an unpleasant weekend spent struggling to comprehend the philosopher Immanuel Kant's explanation of the difference between calling something beautiful and calling it sublime. Nowadays, we throw around the word "sublime" to describe gooey desserts or overpriced handbags. In Kant's epistemology, it meant something limitless, an aesthetically pleasing entity so huge that it made the perceiver's head hurt. Machu Picchu isn't just beautiful, it's sublime.”

“I felt bad for lying to John, who was about as honest as Abe Lincoln on sodium Pentothal.”

“The ability to find solutions to life's challenges is what makes us grow as a person.”

“Rather than arriving five hours late and flustered, it would be better all around if he were to arrive five hours and a few extra minutes late, but triumphantly in command.”

“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.”