In the politics of the every day, our words and gestures, or their absence, count very much.

No major war or act of mass killing in the twentieth century began without the aggressors or perpetrators first claiming innocence and victimhood.

To abandon facts is to abandon freedom.

Most the power of authoritarianism is freely given.

Like Hitler, the President used the word lies to mean statements of fact not to his liking and presented journalism as a campaign against himself.

The whole notion of disruption is adolescent: It assumes that after the teenagers make a mess, the adults will come and clean it up. But there are no adults. We own this mess.

Other forces were at work besides conformism. But without the conformists, the great atrocities would have been impossible.

History permits us to be responsible: not for everything, but for something... History gives us the company of those who have done and suffered more than we have.

The vast majority of Jews killed in the Holocaust never saw a concentration camp.

The definition of a relationship is like a shower. You walk in when it is cold, and comes out when it is too hot.

Music is intended and designed for sentient beings that have hopes and purposes and emotions.

By about the year 2000 Communist China will be a “superpower” built by American technology and skill.

I grew up 60 minutes way from Richmond, in Charlottesville, Virginia and, as a child, I was obsessed with the Civil War. I used to do re-enactments and all that stuff.

I think actually singing the words is more therapeutic than just sitting down to write them, because then you are letting it out, and it's coming from your gut.

Why is divorce so expensive? Because it's worth it!

Don't do something just for the money. Money is a side effect of persistence. You persist in things you are interested in. Explore your interests. Then persist. Then enjoy all the side effects.

I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.

The greatest fools are oft the most satisfied.

Love has always been the most important business in my life; I should say the only one.