In the modern view, unbridled personal freedom is the only good to be pursued; any obstacle to it is a problem to be overcome.

Everybody uses mime and gesture in real life, though we don't realize it. It's very useful as a performance technique, though it can be boring to watch on its own.

I have a greater appreciation for kitchen appliances, having played one.

It is easy to be lenient at other people's expense, and call it generosity of mind.

Don't call me a mindless philosopher, you overweight glob of grease.

Equality is the measure of all things, and bad behavior is less bad if everyone indulges in it.

Unilateral tolerance in a world of intolerance is like unilateral disarmament in a world of armed camps: it regards hope as a better basis for policy than reality.

I have never understood the liberal assumption that if there were justice in the world, there would be fewer rather than more prisoners.

We seem to be made to suffer. It's our lot in life.

Two or three notes of music can instantly make you feel sad or tense or afraid or angry. To do that in words is much more difficult.

Where hopes are unrealistic, fears often become exaggerated; where dreams alone are blueprints, nightmares result.

Phones are only good for ordering pizza and telling someone you're running late

There's nothing wrong with athletics, but they shouldn't get in the way of your schoolwork.

If someone from the government tries to put his hands on your money... run away as fast as you can and tell the nearest conservative.

I look to work with businesses that know what they are doing but need larger distribution or exposure.

Governments that invest billions in new hardware still find it hard to accept that they might benefit just as much from systematic innovation in such things as child development or cutting crime.

The government has no money of its own. It's all your money.

But which was the real me? Let me be perfectly honest: I was a man of many faces. (p.33)

The writing you allude to is a form of dissent, but it's also expressive of the need to evolve beyond what is turgid and stale in contemporary fiction.

A vacant white room with lights is still a submission to the neutral. Works of art seen in such spaces seem to be going through a kind of esthetic convalescence.

I think you should live your moral values, but the last thing, the very last thing, the government should do is have laws that would punish women who make reproductive choices.