Over-certified adjectives are the mark of most best-seller writing

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.

Love is always worth the risks, even when, especially when, it scares you.

I knew what I wanted to do. Sometimes you just had to be brave.

The power that is supported by force alone will have cause often to tremble.

I'm very out of style... or I should say I have my own style.

Every branch of human knowledge, if traced up to its source and final principles, vanishes into mystery.

A lot of times, L.A. is desaturated, and cement and freeways, and downtown.

I am totally in favor of trade. But I want trade deals for our country that create more jobs and higher wages for American workers.

The life of sense begins by assuming that we can only fitfully live the life of reason.

I'm on Governor Gray Davis' California Alliance Towards Education to bring the arts back to high schools.

I think my favorite fact about myself is that I have never been dismayed by a critic's bilge or bile, and have never once in my life asked or thanked a reviewer for a review.