If you were starting from scratch to invent an instrument that could impose fiscal discipline, the last one on earth you would come up with is the United States government.

The forces of retribution are always listening. They never sleep.

There's nothing so dangerous for manipulators as people who choose to think for themselves.

Everybody's for democracy in principle. It's only in practice that the thing gives rise to stiff objections.

Ninety percent of politics is deciding whom to blame.

In government and out, there are vast realms of the bureaucracy dedicated to seeking more information, in perpetuity if need be, in order to avoid taking action.

Everyone seems to be running against a liar, but nobody seems to be one. Odd - I mean, the math doesn't work out.

Washington, under Democrats and Republicans, has a profoundly neurotic attitude toward 'the people.' It is built on equal parts of suspicion, loathing, fear, respect and dependence.

In Washington it is an honor to be disgraced. you have to have been somebody to fall.

Thin skin is the only kind of skin human beings come with.

Talking too much too soon and with too much self-satisfaction has always seemed to me a sure way to court disaster.

We are alone by birth, but we conceal the truth from ourselves till death.

Drink nothing without seeing it sign nothing without reading it.

What cannot be altered must be borne not blamed.

My mom is a really good cook. We used to make dumplings together.

I'm attracted to how fraught the parent-child relationship is, swerving so easily between love and hostility, with almost no plausible way to end, unless someone dies.

Who does it hurt? That's who the story is about.

I got a very strong sense from my mother, in particular, that we are all equal in the sight of God.

The underlying intellectual argument for seeking to tax economic rents retains its force.

You know when they have a fishing show on TV? They catch the fish and then let it go. They don't want to eat the fish, they just want to make it late for something.

I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise.