I sometimes think that the American story is the one about the reading of the will.

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

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.

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.

Thirst is a language even the grass understands.

Duty and honor are oft enough realm only for those with security to afford them.

Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art it is the part the schools cannot recognize.

There come a few times in a person's life where there is a clear choice," Cadvan said. "The difference between one person and another is how they meet that choice.

Imagination is built upon knowledge.

I like it when actors depart from the script to find their characters.

Too many people embrace religion from the same motives that they take a companion in wedlock, not from true love of the person, but because of a large dowry.

Dance for yourself. If someone understands, good. If not, no matter.

When your mind is empty of prejudices you can see the Tao. When your heart is empty of desires you can follow the Tao.

We must together build an economic agenda for the India of our dreams that translates into improved standards of living, increased human well-being and assured social justice.