Competition in academia is so vicious because the stakes are so small.

Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.

Equal opportunity means everyone will have a fair chance at being incompetent.

Competence, like truth, beauty, and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder.

Don't believe in miracles - depend on them.

An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.

Every girl should use what Mother Nature gave her before Father Time takes it away.

When in doubt or danger, run in circles, scream and shout.

A man doesn't know what he knows until he knows what he doesn't know.

There are two kinds of failures: those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought

Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.

The marathon is like a bullfight.

I learned a little of beauty - enough to know that it had nothing to do with truth.

You get a different kick out of all aspects of filmmaking.

If you are an [American] politician it's very hard to imagine. "Now we are going to treat these guys as our equals? That's ridiculous. What have they ever done to deserve that?"

I have discovered that most people who tell me that they cannot forgive a person who wronged them are handicapped by a mistaken understanding of what forgiving is.

When I fell, some people were in such shock that they didn't reach out. They were so mad at me, rather than having compassion for what happened. I lost a lot of friends.

I do like Philip Pullman.And that's an exception because Philip Pullman's books allow magic.

My code of life and my personal bushido is honour, respect, loyalty, courage and surrender.

With all due respect, I have nothing to prove about my worth to anyone.

Luckily for me, when I was growing up in high school, I had a band, and I was a singer in the band. I'm less of a legit Broadway singer than I am a pop-rock singer.