I know no other way out of what is both the maze of the eternal present and the prison of the self except with a string of words.

Leadership consists not in degrees of technique but in traits of character.

I never can pass by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York without thinking of it not as a gallery of living portraits but as a cemetery of tax-deductible wealth.

People may expect too much of journalism. Not only do they expect it to be entertaining, they expect it to be true.

The substitution of meaning accounts for the grasping of misers as well as the extravagance of spendthrifts. Karl Marx well understood this peculiar transformation of flesh into coin.

Dissent is what rescues democracy from a quiet death behind closed doors.

The survival of American democracy depends less on the size of its armies than on the capacity of its individual citizens to rely... on the strength of their own thought.

It isn't money itself that causes the trouble, but the use of money as votive offering and pagan ornament.

America is about class. To pretend that it isn't is very ignorant. No society has ever existed without some kind of a ruling class.

Anti-utopianism continues to suffuse our culture...Today few imagine that society can be fundamentally improved, and those who do are seen as at best deluded, at worst threatening.

Unlike every other nation in the world, the United States defines itself as a hypothesis and constitutes itself as an argument.

How often have the greatest thoughts and ideas come to light during conversations with the family over the evening dinner?

Speech is not a means in the service of an external end. It contains its own rule of usage, ethics, and view of the world, as a gesture sometimes bears the whole truth about a man.

When I had made more money than I needed for myself and my family, I set up a foundation to promote the values and principles of a free and open society.

I had some big ups and downs when I was in my 20s and the one thing I learned was, no matter how low it gets, something good will come along - something always comes out of that dark period.

I don't get into politics, general or musical, but just call me if you get jury duty. Even in New Jersey I was able to help somebody.

Sensitive love letters are my specialty. 'Dear Baby, Welcome to Dumpsville. Population: you.'

I've never worked a day in my life. Don't get me wrong. I work at track. If you love what you do, it's not work.

Like all people who try to exhaust a subject, he exhausted his listeners.

Your faith will grow only in the measure that you give it away.

Cohabitation seems a greater leap in cities because it's all the harder to extract oneself if things turn sour. It's what keeps otherwise functional adults living with their mothers.