America was based on a poetic vision. What will happen when it loses its poetry?

Every great work of art ... is a celebration, an act of insubordination against the betrayals, horrors and infidelities of life.

I see people who talk about America, and then undermine it by not paying attention to its soul, to its poetry. I see polarization, reductionism and superficiality.

Once we know of atrocities we cannot remain silent, and knowledge inevitably leads to an urge to protect the innocent.

That, of course, is what great works of imagination do for us: They make us a little restless, destabilize us, question our preconceived notions and formulas.

I no longer believe that we can keep silent. We never really do, mind you. In one way or another we articulate what has happened to us through the kind of people we become.

You need imagination in order to imagine a future that doesn't exist.

It is amazing how, when all possibilities seem to be taken away from you, the minutest opening can become a great freedom.

The negative side of the American Dream comes when people pursue success at any cost, which in turn destroys the vision and the dream.

I eat my heart out alone.

I am suddenly left alone again on the sunny path, with a memory of the rain.

Want a little cheese with that whine, maestro?

It is also in the interests of a tyrant to make his subjects poo...the people are so occupied with their daily tasks that they have no time for plotting.

It will not be we who reach Alpha Centauri, and the other nearby stars. It will be a species very like us - but with more of our strengths and fewer of our weaknesses.

One person can keep a secret, but not two.

A man's ledger does not tell what he is, or what he is worth. Count what is in man, not what is on him, if you would know what he is worth-whether rich or poor.

I write out of gratitude for all the books I have loved over the years.

The science [geometry] is pursued for the sake of the knowledge of what eternally exists, and not of what comes for a moment into existence, and then perishes.

Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.

During a carnival, men put masks over their masks.

The world would be a safer place, If someone had a plan, Before exploring outer space, To find the inner man.