Democracy requires that if you who don't like the outcome of elections you have to tolerate it and then pursue your interest the next time around.

We've been taught in America that big is best. That's why people have to believe that they must live in the greatest country in the world, which is absolutely idiotic.

I think people involved with institutions find it harder to know the time to go than the time to come.

I was really worn down by an American society that is racist, smugly blind to it, and hugely self-satisfied.

Where does a black soul go to rest?

People need their history like they need air and food.

We all have to die, and I preferred to have just one death. It seems to me that to suffer insult without response is to die many deaths.

I've never had any trouble opposing people I've been close to. I've never worried about offending or bothering people I feel strongly about.

Something is very, very wrong with American culture. The signs are everywhere. I think the country is in almost terminal descent.

Americans don't bother to notice anybody else in the world.

I think the evangelicals want to provoke an immense global disaster to precipitate the second coming of Christ.

Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.

When you're touring, you're constantly in motion.

I do strongly identify with being Jewish. I was raised Orthodox and had a childhood complicated by the fact that my father was deeply religious and my mother was not.

It's upsetting to be a man in our society.

I felt that a number of people might have questioned my loyalty, but I continue to be a patriotic American.

You find in life that there are different levels of being in love with someone, and maybe everyone doesn't find that undeniable, indescribable... I can't describe it, it's indescribable.

And eventually as I kept writing it, something emerged that was not quite me but a version of me.

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. For the least sin, it wouldn't take us longTo get so we had no one left to live with.For to be social is to be forgiving.

If we have the power to turn another planet into Earth, then we have the power to turn Earth back into Earth.

Mystery is but another name for ignorance; if we were omniscient, all would be perfectly plain!