“I cannot call to mind a single instance where I have ever been irreverent, except toward the things which were sacred to other people.”

“You’ve always called me irreverent. You’ve branded me irreverent. In my mind you invented irreverent.”

“It's that a bit of irreverence is necessary to have any self-esteem at all. Not irreverence for people, but rather, for what other people think.”

“I do not believe that I am made of the stuff which constitutes heroes, because, in all of the hundreds of instances that my voluntary acts have placed me face to face with death, I cannot recall a single one where any alternative step to that I took occurred to me until many hours later.”

“The best time of my life has been the three instances where I have been there for the birth of my children. That is, nothing [else] has ever come close.”

“I have, of course, been called many other things. Most of them uncouth, although very few were unearned”