If you're a victim, you're not happy. You can't be happy. It's impossible to be happy. It's even difficult to be content.

If Thomas Jefferson thought taxation without representation was bad, he should see how it is with representation.

Poverty is not the root cause of crime.

Liberals attempt through judicial activism what they cannot win at the ballot box.

We're not sexists, we're chauvinists - we're male chauvinist pigs, and we're happy to be because we think that's what men were destined to be. We think that's what women want.

End results that work that don’t involve government threaten liberals.

You know why there's a Second Amendment? In case the government fails to follow the first one.

Styrofoam and plastic milk jugs are biodegradable! Do you know what isn't biodegradable? Paper!

I think cigars are just a tremendous addition to the enjoyment of life.

The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies.

In a country of children where the option is Santa Claus or work, what wins?

I am what I am, an’ I’m not ashamed. 'Never be ashamed, ’ my ol’ dad used ter say, ‘there’s some who’ll hold it against you, but they’re not worth botherin’ with.

You can study gravity forever without learning how to fly.

The tatters of old stories are tangled, weathered, muted by long-held silences that succeeded loud feuds, and sometimes no doubt re-dyed a more flattering color.

There was a choice to be made, and Lena hadn't made it. The songs never lied. At least, they hadn't yet.

Laws are the spider's webs which if anything small falls into them they ensnare it but large things break through and escape.

I've always had a lot of ambivalence about fame and celebrity.

The tide tarrieth no man.

One wonders sometimes, looking at the world, how it's dealing with itself. There are days when you wake up and you feel very optimistic and there are days when you feel pessimistic.

For a second I feel a rush of sadness: for the horizons that vanish behind us, for the people we leave behind, the tiny-doll selves that get stored away and ultimately buried.

You know, people talk about [Richard] Nixon's "madman theory." We don't really know much about that. It was in memoirs, by somebody else.