Mailer's Law: A thing either gets better or it costs more to run it the way it was.

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.

I have lived with you and loved you, and now you are gone. Gone where I cannot follow, until I have finished all of my days.

America does not have a health-car system. We have a sick-care system... It's a stretch to use the word "system" to describe, as this word denotes organization.

Great leaders don't need to act tough. Their confidence and humility serve to underscore their toughness.

A free market was never meant to be a free licence to take whatever you can get, however you can get it.

A kinsman in trouble had to be saved, not blamed; anger against a brother was felt in the flesh, not in the bone.

I think the key is - other icons told me this - you don't have to chase the money. The money is going to chase you. That's part of success. That's part of the blessings.

I adore [photography's] uneasy mix of fact and fiction - its dubious claim to truth - its status as history.

I think there are some good players coming up. I think we are at a point where people can swallow a guitar solo in a pop rock record again.

Many Americans have no idea of what has been the foreign policy of their country. If you don't know about something, you can't understand what is going on.

A true pilot must of necessity pay attention to the seasons, the heavens, the stars, the winds, and everything proper to the craft if he is really to rule a ship.