Just in the nick of time they realized that it was their own habitat they were wrecking -- that they weren't merely visitors.

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

There is a tragic flaw in our precious constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center.

He didn't look like a soldier at all. He looked like a filthy flamingo.

Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

Perhaps I am the turtle, able to live simply anywhere, even underwater for short periods, with my home on my back.

About astrology and palmistry: they are good because they make people vivid and full of possibilities. They are communism at its best. Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm.

We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different.

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

The historian's rightful task is to distil experience as a medicinal warning for the future generations, not to distil a drug.

I have gotten where I am today by refusing to stay where I was. Change is something I have done over and over again.

You can perceive a person's aspiration if it is genuine, because this creates a change in the emanations from such a person.

The past can't be changed, can it? It can just be forgiven.

You have to be brave when you are stupid

Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.

Some records are going to be bigger than others. You're always going to be compared to your biggest record.

Boredom is my worst enemy. It's killed a lot of my friends, but it won't get me. When I get bored, I go risk my life somewhere.

We sit here, very different each from the other, until the passion arrives to give us our equality, to make us part of the play, to make the play part of us.

I'm not in love with David Petraeus. But I think he does present a terrific role model.