Obsession is the single most wasteful human activity, because with an obsession you keep coming back and back and back to the same question and never get an answer.

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.

Forgiveness is God's greatest gift

Theories look great on paper until reality scribbles all over the page.

Your words and actions must match to build your character. Any gap in those will put a dent in your credibility. Be a man of your words.

Would we prefer to be lifting it? Of course we would. You can't look back, we have to look forward and say what are we going to do get it back next year.

Envy makes people lonely, and brings them great suffering. It is horrible stuff to have in our flesh, and it is a sin we need to take deadly seriously.

I hate those men who would send into war youth to fight and die for them; the pride and cowardice of those old men, making their wars that boys must die.

The greatest obstacle to pleasure is not pain; it is delusion.

I think when you've lived a bit, you read more into the songs. I do, anyway. And you're sort of living the songs rather than performing them.

Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.

A jealous man only sees his own spectrum when he looks upon other men, and gives his character in theirs.