I had been walking one afternoon in Scotland and thought: Why don't I just keep going? There was, I said, a magic in leaving a line of footprints stretching across Asia.

Democracy is not simply a question of structures. It is a state of mind. It is an activity.

The question shouldn't be what we ought to do, but what we can do.

I have never met a villager who does not want a vote.

This idea that failure is not an option: It makes failure invisible, inconceivable and inevitable.

The world isnt one way or another. Things can be changed very, very rapidly by someone with sufficient confidence, sufficient knowledge and sufficient authority.

Despite the dubious statistics … democracy is a thing of value for which we should be fighting.

If democracy is to be rebuilt … it is necessary not just for the public to learn to trust their politicians, but for the politicians to learn to trust the public.

Religions . . . seem to avoid mountain passes.

I had a lot of romantic notions about what it would mean to cross Asia by foot.

In some sense, I'm a romantic. I like the idea of organic history and tradition.

‪Am I dead? Is this heaven? No, I can't be. I'm realizing this as I process my second sensation: discomfort. I turn my head. Ooh, a TV. Maybe it is heaven.

Everything deep is also simple and can be reproduced simply as long as its reference to the whole truth is maintained. But what matters is not what is witty but what is true.

Me, I was already jaded and tarnished, skeptical that a fantasy world could keep reality at bay.

Man lives in a world of surmise, of mystery, of uncertainties.

I'm still really into set design and construction when I do films. I notice that stuff.

I can smell blood, Elena,” Dmitri drawled, walking back into the room. “Are you trying to flirt?

I will not abridge my freedoms so as not to offend savages, freedom of speech is under violent assault here.

Affairs go on, and all will take some shape or other, but it keeps one in hot water all the time.

The ordinary bloke will not voluntarily pay for "art" that leaves him unmoved--if he does pay for it, the money has to be conned out of him, by taxes and such.

False religions like Islam who teach that you must worship this way, are completely opposite with what our First Amendment stands for.