It's not the sentiments of men which make history but their actions.

Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing.

A modern democracy is a tyranny whose borders are undefined; one discovers how far one can go only by traveling in a straight line until one is stopped.

The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level.

Khomeini has offered us the opportunity to regain our frail religion ... faith in the power of words.

There was that law of life, so cruel and so just, that one must grow or else pay more for remaining the same.

Any war that requires the suspension of reason as a necessity for support is a bad war.

America is a hurricane, and the only people who do not hear the sound are those fortunate if incredibly stupid and smug White Protestants who live in the center, in the serene eye of the big wind.

I was thinking that surgeons had to be the happiest people on earth. To cut people up and get paid for it-that's happiness, I told myself.

Love asks us that we be a little braver than is comfortable, a little more generous, a little more flexible. It means living on the edge more than we care to.

Reaching consensus in a group is often confused with finding the right answer.

You sure you're all right? You aren't out here pondering dark female thoughts are you?

It was crime at its purest, in which empathy, that most fundamental aspect of human morality, evaporated and another being became only a target for untamed fantasy.

Your brain is a forest, And the nerves are trees.When the branches touch, Snaps jumps between the leaves.

I have never advocated war except as a means of peace.

Do you believe in God, doctor?" No - but what does that really mean? I'm fumbling in the dark, struggling to make something out. But I've long ceased finding that original.

I'm 78, I'm on my pension in Ireland, and all that good stuff

I'm getting sick and tired of doing anything half-way.

Freedom must be gained step by step, slowly. Freedom is a food which must be carefully administered when people are too hungry for it.

Every ballet, whether or not successful artistically or with the public, has given me something important.

I have made it totally clear to the players that my door will always be open.