But if America falters in greatness and purpose, than Americans are nothing but the offscourings and hungry of other lands.

The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving.

And I don't feel any form of music is beyond me in the sense of that I don't understand it or I don't have some love for some part of it.

No lifetime is a loss if you've leaned something, because that learning stays with you. There is no such thing as a wasted life, if you have learned.

Words are a human way of trying to describe things. But they're much more of interference than they are a help in the world of enlightenment.

I just remember the early days of Tenacious D. There was no talk or thought about doing a TV show or a movie.

I can't remember anything I ever wrote.

Books don't harm kids; they arm them.

The influence of mankind on climate is trivially true and numerically insignificant.

I have been poor and I have been rich. Rich is better.

Burning fossil fuels has given us the gift of seeing ourselves in new ways. But that very gift now enables us to see we've got to change our ways.