For what does it mean to be a hero? It requires you to be prepared to deal with forces larger than yourself.

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.

Never offer advice just to appear concerned.

Only the thinking man lives his life the thoughtless man's life passes him by.

That man's silence is wonderful to listen to.

I was an omnivore at reading, so that everything I ever read contributed.

Mama says it's okay to be on the quiet side—if quiet means you're listening, watching, taking it all in.

If by the people you understand the multitude, the hoi polloi, 'tis no matter what they think; they are sometimes in the right, sometimes in the wrong; their judgment is a mere lottery.

Progress is the attraction that moves humanity.

You are mine, Elena. If you choose to sleep in another bed, I will simply pick you up and bring you home.

In order to be loved, we have to love, which means we have to understand.

Love is getting to be cynical, passion's just physical.