It is always the task of the intellectual to "think otherwise." This is not just a perverse idiosyncrasy. It is an absolutely essential feature of a society.

All human beings have an innate need to hear and tell stories and to have a story to live by. . . .

What we are seeking so frantically elsewhere may turn out to be the horse we have been riding all along.

Secularism is not only indifferent to alternative religious systems, but as a religious ideology it is opposed to any other religious systems. It is therefore a closed system.

Somewhere deep down we know that in the final analysis, we do decide things and that even our decisions to let someone else decide are really our decisions, however pusillanimous.

Not to decide is to decide.

The political is replacing the metaphysical as the characteristic mode of grasping reality.

God laughs, it seems, because God knows how it all turns out in the end.

Man must now assume the responsibility for his world. He can no longer shove it off on religious power.

The real ecumenical crisis today is not between Catholics and Protestants but between traditional and experimental forms of church life.

The comic, more than the tragic, because it ignites hope, leads to more, not less, participation in the struggle for a just world.

The idea that all people can and should live together in peace is not really a new one - but yet in practice it is very young indeed.

Motivation is not just part of business—it’s everything in business.

I write because I want more than one life; I insist on a wider selection. It's greed, plain and simple.

It's certainly easier to implement bad security and make it illegal for anyone to notice than it is to implement good security.

Our problem is that we don't have enough people in America, including black people, who are progressive and willing to sacrifice their popularity in order to tell the truth.

I don't mind, it doesn't hurt me if anyone says I'm not normal. I don't know what normal is. Sometimes I'm just really tired, or I haven't eaten, and people get the wrong idea about me.

We do not recognize the right of the Palestinian Arabs to rule the country, since Palestine is still undeveloped and awaits its builders.

There is no movement in Nirvana. There is no sameness. And one does not consider it to be timeless because one is not one. It is you, my friend, who go away.

I find it hard to take chances that might mean making bad decisions.

I would describe myself as a hard worker, very humble and focused on whatever it is that I put my mind to.