"The university's business is the conservation of useless knowledge and what the university itself apparently fails to see is that this enterprise is not only noble but indispensable as well, that society can not exist unless it goes on."

"As might be supposed, my parents were quite poor, but we somehow never seemed to lack anything we needed, and I never saw a trace of discontent or a failure in cheerfulness over their lot in life, as indeed over anything."

"Considered now as a possession, one may define culture as the residuum of a large body of useless knowledge that has been well and truly forgotten."

"Life has obliged him to remember so much useful knowledge that he has lost not only his history, but his whole original cargo of useless knowledge history, languages, literatures, the higher mathematics, or what you will - are all gone."

"Baseball is a game, yes. It is also a business. But what is most truly is is disguised combat. For all its gentility, its almost leisurely pace, baseball is violence under wraps."

"I had three points I wanted to make: That not everybody in Hollywood is on the left, that Obama has broken a lot of the promises he made when he took office, and that the people should feel free to get rid of any politician who's not doing a good job. But I didn't make up my mind exactly what I was going to say until I said it."

"It has been my experience that if we make the effort to listen to people when we meet them, and work to get to know them a little, it is then easy to find something likeable in practically anyone."

"The most successful people are those who are passionate about their work."