Starting with [Ronald] Regan it became quite open, the attack on unions. It wasn't the Pinkertons anymore, but it was just not applying the laws.

Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can't afford the time to think.

The general population doesn't know what's happening, and it doesn't even know that it doesn't know.

That's the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don't work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.

Jingoism, racism, fear, religious fundamentalism: these are the ways of appealing to people if you're trying to organize a mass base of support for policies that are really intended to crush them.

There's a good reason why nobody studies history, it just teaches you too much.

The world is a very puzzling place. If you're not willing to be puzzled, you just become a replica of someone else's mind.

Democratic societies can't force people. Therefore they have to control what they think.

Nobody should have any illusions. The United States has essentially a one-party system and the ruling party is the business party.

If you want to control a population... give them a God to worship.

A language is not just words. It's a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community, a whole history that creates what a community is. It's all embodied in a language.

At night I dream that you and I are two plantsthat grew together, roots entwined, and that you know the earth and the rain like my mouth, since we are made of earth and rain.

Words both written and read are my passion.

An insult directed at the wicked is not to be censured; on the contrary, the honest man, if he has sense, can only applaud.

To trust yourself to test your limits. That is the courage to succeed.

I'm a kibitzer with a broad portfolio.

We don't have any problem finding enough things to do; the problem we have is making sure we don't overload ourselves inadvertently.

Cindy Sheehan is a clown. There is no real antiwar movement. No serious politician, with anything to do with anything, would show his face at an antiwar rally.

We refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.

Courage isn't something you are born with. It comes to you with experience.

I was not going to be a stupid girl singer. I was going to be way more than that.