No activity I know is more of a confidence builder and at the same time more 'humility training' than wrestling.

Civility is not about dousing strongly held views. It's about making sure that people are willing to respect other perspectives.

There are words bandied about that are being misused - words like 'socialism,' words like 'communism,' words like 'fascism.

Iraqis have held elections and have recently put together their government, all encouraging developments.

There's probably a little greater case for pessimism than optimism. But I do not rule out optimism.

It is hard to cement any relations with any country based on promises that may not be deliverable.

A government of, by and for the people is obligated to conduct the nation's business in a manner that respects dissent.

The arts and humanities are vastly more important in troubled times.

History provides a sense of where we've been and lessons that can be taken forward.

The majority of U.S. high school students don't know within 50 years when the Civil War occurred.

America is very decentralized in how it supports the humanities, unlike European countries where virtually everything stems from the central government.

If I can't trust your word, I can't trust you.

People are looking for chimes and resonances. Chimes leave echoes, and that's what rhyme is. Poetry is about leaving an echo imprint in somebody else's head, in the dark snow of their mind.

My definition of success is control.

We are afraid of ideas, of experimenting, of change. We shrink from thinking a problem through to a logical conclusion.

Global warming is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist.

Even a strong man can succumb to the wiles of a pretty girl with pointy shoes.

Ninety percent of the art of living consists of getting along with people you cannot stand.

No wonder you want to be a writer. How can you not, with all that behind you? You practically are a novel already.

Whether we’re talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down.

It comes to pass oft that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twanged off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself would have earned him.