Bright was the light of my last martini on my moral horizon

Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing.

A modern democracy is a tyranny whose borders are undefined; one discovers how far one can go only by traveling in a straight line until one is stopped.

The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level.

Khomeini has offered us the opportunity to regain our frail religion ... faith in the power of words.

There was that law of life, so cruel and so just, that one must grow or else pay more for remaining the same.

Any war that requires the suspension of reason as a necessity for support is a bad war.

America is a hurricane, and the only people who do not hear the sound are those fortunate if incredibly stupid and smug White Protestants who live in the center, in the serene eye of the big wind.

I was thinking that surgeons had to be the happiest people on earth. To cut people up and get paid for it-that's happiness, I told myself.

Love asks us that we be a little braver than is comfortable, a little more generous, a little more flexible. It means living on the edge more than we care to.

Reaching consensus in a group is often confused with finding the right answer.

There comes a time when all the secrets are told and all that is left are their spent ghosts.

My dad was such a bigot. He was a horrible, self-centred person. He was really racist and he'd talk about the Jews and blacks and Catholics even.

There are two options: adapt or die.

Armies are not only for offensives.

This is the only planet with chocolate, so we've got to save it.

How seek the way which leadeth to our wishes? By renouncing our wishes. The crown of excellence is renunciation.

Humor is serious work. But it keeps everybody at the table.

When the world is on your shoulder, got to straighten up your act and boogie down.

I'm not a big music fan. Well, I am a big fan, but I'm not the type of person who buys stuff.

The writer of history is perhaps closer to the artist than the scholar.