The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one - America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.

It's nice that HBO is in business with the audience and not with the advertisers. There's a difference.

You're going to fall down, but the world doesn't care how many times you fall down, as long as it's one fewer than the numbers of times you get back up.

Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.

Stupid people surround themselves with smart people. Smart people surround themselves with smart people who disagree with them.

An artist’s job is to captivate… if we stumble into truth, we got lucky.

Rule of storytelling: When a character is shoved against a wall, shove them against a wall harder.

A friend is somebody who says the same things to your face that they would say if you're not in the room.

Certainly, last year we did an episode about the census and sampling versus a direct statistic. You just said the word 'census', and people fall asleep.

Socializing on the internet is to socializing what reality TV is to reality.

There's a great tradition in storytelling that's thousands of years old, telling stories about kings and their palaces, and that's really what I wanted to do.

The good or healthy society would then be defined as one that permitted people's highest purposes to emerge by satisfying all their basic needs.

We keep so busy talking we are so keen to act that we forget that in the heart lies all we need untapped, intact.

Love of my life, I love you so. Love of my life, don't ever go.

There's no point in bringing together a talented band if you don't let them do their thing.

I was genuinely happy when I wrote that song [Training Wheels] and very in love. That's a very rare emotion to evoke out of me.

A trillion dollars spent, 2,000 American lives lost - Afghanistan is the longest war in American history. But you don't hear a word about it.

Did you ever figure to be living in a time when your check is good, but the bank bounces?

A man though wise, should never be ashamed of learning more, and must unbend his mind.

Pre-state societies were far more violent than our own.

Got 27 children I never see.