Peace, if it ever exists, will not be based on the fear of war, but on the love of peace. It will not be the abstaining from an act, but the coming of a state of mind.

Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today.

I try to write a certain amount each day, five days a week. A rule sometimes broken is better than no rule.

Discount my partiality, but my report is that so far The Winds of War is looking good.

This is an excellent martini — sort of tastes like it isn't there at all, just a cold cloud.

Some people think that all the equipment you need to discuss religion is a mouth.

The door available to everyone that can lead to happiness & success is the modest door of the public library. I found it to be so in my own life and work.

I felt there's a wealth in Jewish tradition, a great inheritance. I'd be a jerk not to take advantage of it.

The only true non-conformists are in the asylums; the only radically free spirits are in the death house awaiting the chair. We live by patterns.

The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots. If you're not an idiot, but find yourself in the Navy, you can only operate well by pretending to be one.

This life is slow suicide, unless you read.

It's only pain which leads us to achieve something special.

I like Nine Inch Nails, and I like hip-hop.

Although my Dad was a talented calligrapher and both of my younger brothers were successful, I was the first one in my family to graduate from high school.

Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself.

Our energies are often stimulated by the necessity of supporting a being weaker than ourselves.

Every word has consequences. Every silence, too.

Increasingly, search is our mechanism for how we understand ourselves, our world, and our place within it.

As a civilised society, we have a duty to support those among us who are vulnerable and in need. When times are hard, that duty should be felt more than ever, not disappear or diminish.

history ... a sort of immortality turned upside down. Her life stretched backwards through ten centuries.

I do remember, the first time we met [with Patti Smith], the door opening with a squeak. And then there was this very beautiful girl looking out.