The most intimidating world leader was Lyndon Johnson, who became U.S. President when John Kennedy was assassinated. He exulted in this power and liked to inspire fear.

Nothing appeals to intellectuals more than the feeling that they represent 'the people'. Nothing, as a rule, is further from the truth

The Second World War took place not so much because no one won the First, but because the Versailles Treaty did not acknowledge this truth.

A deliberate plan is not always necessary for the highest art; it emerges.

Global warming, like Marxism, is a political theory of actions, demanding compliance with its rules.

The most socially subversive institution of our time is the one-parent family.

In the last generation, with public Christianity in headlong retreat, we have caught our first, distant view of a de-Christianized world , and it is not encouraging.

The most evil person I ever met was a toss-up between Pablo Picasso and the publisher-crook Robert Maxwell.

Euphemism is a human device to conceal the horrors of reality.

For me this is the vital litmus test: no intellectual society can flourish where a Jew feels even slightly uneasy.

To many, Heathrow in August is a paradigm of Hell.

Nostalgia has a way of blocking the reality of the past.

Insanity is the greatest gift of humanity, for insanity talks to the mind of the delusion.

We are eternal beings who are connected to God, Source, or whatever you feel comfortable labeling the Divine. What this means is that we are here for joy and for love.

Your attitude towards failure determines your altitude after failure.

I sabotage myself for fear of what my bigness could do.

I don't want to make pompous, serious films.

My entire career has been pivoting from company to company. Some people call it lack of planning or direction, I call it flexibility and good improvisational skills.

To love is to approach each other center to center.

It takes guts to get out of the ruts.

It can seem an amazing fact that laws of nature keep on holding, that the frame of nature does not fall apart.