It's now possible for young men to look at more beautiful nude women in one day than... any man in history had ever seen ... That's not nothing; that's something. To think that doesn't do anything to you... No, that likely does something to you.

Don't underestimate the hole your absence would leave ... Each of us, we're remarkable creatures, and we have something to offer to the world, to the people we love, to the world at large. It's our responsibility to make that manifest, and we move a little farther away from paradise every time that doesn't happen. Really, really.

It's a failing of our education system that literacy isn't marketed properly to young men ... Straighten up, speak properly, write. Learn to write. Why? Because that's the same as learning to think. And why should you think? Well, because you won't do as many stupid things and your horizons will widen.

How could you possibly defend the idea that you could warp the structure of reality and get away with it? ... Who do you think you are? Reality is... you don't mess with it. It kills you, and it'll torture you quite a lot before doing that if you're particularly unlucky. So, beware. They say the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom ... You violate your conscience, man, you will pay. That's hell.

The relationship you have with your kids, if your eyes are open, that is the best relationship you will ever have with anyone in your life.

I had a great career, and I still do, but I can't say that it was more important to me, like, existentially, than my family.

There is nothing that will make you more powerful than your words ... If you think that reading and writing is for pansies and dimwits, you know, or teacher's pets because they get in less trouble in school, let's say, you're seriously misinformed.

Single mothers can do the job, but, man, that's a hard life. And you're likely to be poor if you do that—very likely to be poor. Even if you started out middle-class or above, it's a very easy route to poverty.

You wouldn't believe how many people don't have friends because they don't know how to introduce themselves and shake hands. I bet you there's 5% of the population who has no friends at all because they don't know how to do that.

Tell the truth, or at least don't lie ... To tell the truth, that's a mighty tall order, man. But you can stop saying things that you know are lies. And that will change your life.

Women are more picky in their mate choices than men, especially sexually. That's the case in every culture. And it's not surprising because women have more at stake sexually than men do.

I pretty much read a book a day from the time I was about 10 'til, well, 'til I started reading really serious books and couldn't read one of those in a day, so for years.

I don't care how tough you are physically; you're nowhere near as tough as you would be if you were physically tough and really literate. And then you're an unstoppable force—and hopefully for good.

Do you want the horror of failure or the certainty of failure?

If you want adventure, I'll tell you an adventure. What an adventure is: You tell the truth as nearly as you can, and you'll have the adventure of your life. That's for sure.

There's no fixing climate change. Conceptually, that's just it's just an indication of unsophisticated thinking. That's all it is.

I believe the research evidence shows that if you introduce pornography into a community that rates of sexual crime committed by men upon women actually decline.