The hoary joke in the literary world, based on 'Dreams From My Father,' was that if things had worked out differently for Barack Obama, he could have made it as a writer.

Always write angry letters to your enemies. Never mail them.

Racial prejudice boils down to the deeply anti-American message that some people are born to fail.

I am explicitly not opening the giant can of worms that is the ongoing current discussion of patent, copyright, and trademark reform.

According to the Office of Technology Assessment, 3 Minuteman missiles and 7 Poseidon missiles could destroy 73 percent of oil-refining capacity in the Soviet Union.

The worst kind of management seeks a single optimum, a one-scale index of efficiency, like the mindless scales of 1 to 10 for grading a woman's beauty or one to four stars for a movie's appeal.

Up or out" greatly magnified the careerist emphasis on holding a position rather than doing a job.

A basic rule of life for reporters is that you should spend your time talking with and learning about people who are not sending you press releases, rather than those who are.

No one ever really 'learns' from history, because choices never present themselves in exactly the same way, and because you can always choose similarities and differences to fit current needs.

There's no longer any surprise in noting that China has grave environmental problems.

Environmental disaster is the gravest threat to China's continued development. That's according to me, but it is not some wacko view.

I don't want to be a kitten anymore. Give me my honorary claws so I can become a lion.

When two souls are united as one the universe itself is powerless to separate them.

Without movement there is no Life...We should use our energy to the fullest.

Technology is like a fish. The longer it stays on the shelf, the less desirable it becomes.

Writers are frequently asked why they wrote their first book. A more interesting answer might come from asking them why they wrote their second one.

Fire and water are not of more universal use than friendship.

Persistence in prayer brings results that casual prayer does not.

Successful organizing is not built on self-interest but rather on dignity and a sense of purpose.

No one is in charge of this process, this is what makes history so interesting, it's a runaway freight train on a dark and stormy night.

Fools act on imagination without knowledge. Pedants act on knowledge without imagination.