Love and freedom are such hideous words. So many cruelties have been done in their name.

Everything is in the way the material is composed.

That each man is the sum of his choices is nothing less than the truth. And each, perhaps, is also something else.

...but as his father used to say when he had a few drinks taken, you couldn't expect bloody miracles when you were talking about God.

How the prisoner and the immigrant are treated by the government, how the poor are treated and those without influence: this is secretly how the government would like to treat us all.

We still tell each other that we are lucky to be alive, when our being alive has almost nothing to do with luck, but with geography, pigmentation, and international exchange rates.

Read a lot, write a lot is the great commandment.

Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work so most people don't recognize them.

Language is no barrier for a lover of words.

Self criticism must be my guide to action, and the first rule for its employment is that in itself it is not a virtue, only a procedure.

Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider.

Every peasant has a lawyer inside of him, just as every lawyer, no matter how urbane he may be, carries a peasant within himself.

We do not know how to formulate string theory nor do we know its underlying principles. Surprisingly, this fact does not stop us from making progress.

There are no kinder or better people in the world than those who listen to you when you are 18.

I cannot tell you how many people, powerful people, come to my studio and they are in tears they are so moved by what they see.

All people want on this earth is to connect with others. Other than eating and sleeping. Human beings need to connect with other human beings. Otherwise, they lose their mind.