For a while, after the Second World War, when there was strong support for labor, this was done subtly.

Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can't afford the time to think.

The general population doesn't know what's happening, and it doesn't even know that it doesn't know.

That's the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don't work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.

Jingoism, racism, fear, religious fundamentalism: these are the ways of appealing to people if you're trying to organize a mass base of support for policies that are really intended to crush them.

There's a good reason why nobody studies history, it just teaches you too much.

The world is a very puzzling place. If you're not willing to be puzzled, you just become a replica of someone else's mind.

Democratic societies can't force people. Therefore they have to control what they think.

Nobody should have any illusions. The United States has essentially a one-party system and the ruling party is the business party.

If you want to control a population... give them a God to worship.

A language is not just words. It's a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community, a whole history that creates what a community is. It's all embodied in a language.

The voices in my head does not likes attitude of some people. I know how to defend myself, but I do not want to hurt their feelings for ease my pain.

I’ve experienced a lot of crap in my life but the one thing that I have learned, is it is better to laugh about it rather than complain about it.

...she had a new handbag to go with her new attitude.

Beauty from another world gave birth to your voice-- sent to rescue scorned hearts from traumatized nights.

One good thing about leaving daily journalism was that I was no longer obliged to read all the book prize short lists.

Writing a memoir has a particularly excited sense of narcissism.

Everyone should get to clobber a princess at least once," Jason said.

I do wear wigs. ... I sometimes make the joke about me standing on a hilltop with my hair blowing in the wind - and me too proud to run after it.

But in America, if you're an atheist, you lose.

Funny things tend not to happen to me. I am not a natural comic. I need to think about things a lot before I can be even remotely amusing.