I would, however, question the implication that there is some novelty in this beyond modalities [of Mikhail Bakunin], which naturally change as institutions change and develop.

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.

We all have some talents and abilities that differentiate us from others

Life is to be lived. If you have to support yourself you had bloody well better find some way that is going to be interesting. And you don't do that by sitting around wondering about yourself.

A holy man isn't aware that he's holy..As soon as we begin to talk about how holy we are, we aren't holy any more.

I was flying back from Lubbock and I saw Jesus on the plane, or maybe it was Elvis. You know, they kind of look the same.

The new specialty at the Iowa fair this year is fried butter on a stick. Of course, if you're like me and you want like to eat healthy, get your stick of butter baked.

The illusion is an agreement between the reader and writer that this [story] will be like life. The emotional temperature drops when you have footnotes.

When you give people who are being financially responsible money, you are enabling them to continue a bad habit. So you are actually helping by saying, "Love you but no."

To be fair, Republicans are not blameless. The deficit began to spiral out of control on President Bush's watch.

I was a healthy young man, and I thought I was invincible before I was diagnosed with kidney disease.

In his state of complete powerlessness the individual perceives the time he has left to live as a brief reprieve.