Most writers have very little that's important or valuable to offer; most of them are just repeating each other.

Gandhi saw how people have to re-think their own individuality before engaging in political activity. Otherwise they're just playing the game that the adversary has set out.

In America, you don't even have proper holidays. It's really one of the most prosperous slave societies in history. People work their asses off all year long and get two weeks off! It's incredible.

The people who encouraged me weren't necessarily writers or readers themselves. They were people who were just pleased to see me devote my life to reading and writing.

I found it really disturbing to see a novelist writing a diatribe about Islam and Muslim radical extremists, blurring the distinction between the two.

The idea that human beings can make history, that is something quite unique to the modern West.

We need to infuse politics with ideas like compassion and empathy, and a sense that we live in an interdependent world.

The asymmetries of power that have shaped relations between the West and the rest of the world also exist in the realm of literary criticism.

Most suffering is human-made and avoidable. It's mostly in your head.

Freedom of speech doesn't guarantee great literature.

In the modern world, nationalism remains a very important force. We delude ourselves into thinking that globalization has made all of that redundant and that everyone just wants to be like America.

Truth, like love and sleep, resents approaches that are too intense.

Ironically, parenting is a shame and judgment minefield precisely because most of us are wading through uncertainty and self-doubt when it comes to raising our children.

We will respond with a heavy hand to the brutal murder of Jews who came to pray and were killed by lowly murderers.

Only a person who is congenially self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays

I'm Elijah. You've heard of me?

I'm glad I don't have to make a living farming. Too much hard work. Too many variables you don't have control over, like, is it going to rain? All I can say is, god bless the real farmers out there.

I’ve been happy alone and I’ve been unhappy without you. I never wanted to depend on anyone, or to let myself care so much I could be made unhappy. But I depend on you and I love you.

I like to have a hero a little underpowered. I mean, Spiderman is far cooler than Superman. How do you challenge Superman?

The survivorship of a worthy man in his son is a pleasure scarce inferior to the hopes of the continuance of his own life.

There is nothing more American than peaceful protest.