The distance between taking social action and having the knowledge is as wide as the mouth of the Mississippi.

Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they've stolen.

My life needs editing.

People tell me there are a lot of guys like me, which doesn't explain why I'm lonely.

I've arranged with my executor to be buried in Chicago. Because when I die, I want to still remain active politically.

When Obama ran, he said, We can change the world! The world: can you change it back?!

There's a danger our fiscal bankruptcy might overtake our moral bankruptcy.

A conservative is someone who believes in reform. But not now.

Remember that no matter how selfish, how cruel, how unfeeling you have been today, every time you take a breath, you make a flower happy.

The fact is that you can't have a good relationship with a girl who hasn't settled things with her father.

One thing about being narrow-minded: you'll never be lonely.

You ought to pause and enjoy the peace in the moment.

I can't distract myself enough here, for sketches to a new opera are constantly buzzing around in my head, to the extent that I need all my strength to wrest myself from them.

We cannot be kind to each other here for even an hour. We whisper, and hint, and chuckle and grin at our brother's shame; however you take it we men are a little breed.

What is laid down, ordered, factual is never enough to embrace the whole truth: life always spills over the rim of every cup.

When I have meetings scheduled so tight that I can't go to the loo, that's where I draw the line!

You have to be a special kind of stupid to forget to eat.

The sudden hunch, the creative leap of mind that "sees" in a flash how to solve a problem in a simple way, is something quite different from general intelligence.

I am very practical, but at the same time, I am a dreamer and romantic.

The highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion.

People sometimes get in the habit of being loyal to a mistake.