Platitude: an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true.

Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.

Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.

Yes, the world is an illusion. But Truth is always being shown there.

Every person may not be great, but there is some greatness in every person.

To be afraid and to be brave is the best kind of courage of all.

The squaring of the circle is a stage on the way to the unconscious, a point of transition leading to a goal lying as yet unformulated beyond it. It is one of those paths to the centre.

In some ways all of my fiction is like a conversation I'm having with the writers I read when I was first falling in love with books.

Iraq has to be made an international, and not just a national American problem.

I think like, 'And we have some problems here on the earth we worry about? Compared to likenothing. Just be happy. Don't worry be happy right now

I've never played a character that would sing.

For me, the way I stay consistent is through stand-up comedy.

I write songs from the point of view I had at a time;I'm not tryingto write songs from a young person's point of view.That only ends in disaster.