The sole virtue of losing your short-term memory is that it does free you to be your own editor.

Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing.

A modern democracy is a tyranny whose borders are undefined; one discovers how far one can go only by traveling in a straight line until one is stopped.

The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level.

Khomeini has offered us the opportunity to regain our frail religion ... faith in the power of words.

There was that law of life, so cruel and so just, that one must grow or else pay more for remaining the same.

Any war that requires the suspension of reason as a necessity for support is a bad war.

America is a hurricane, and the only people who do not hear the sound are those fortunate if incredibly stupid and smug White Protestants who live in the center, in the serene eye of the big wind.

I was thinking that surgeons had to be the happiest people on earth. To cut people up and get paid for it-that's happiness, I told myself.

Love asks us that we be a little braver than is comfortable, a little more generous, a little more flexible. It means living on the edge more than we care to.

Reaching consensus in a group is often confused with finding the right answer.

We're all dead the moment we're born. Just, some of us get there faster than others.

It’s your incalculable ability to trust others that has always touched me. And I’m sorry to have taken advantage of it so many times” - Dr. Paige

Not the sadness, but the happiness, is the ultimate purpose of life.

Kids can handle a lot more than you think they can. It's when they get to be grown up that you have to start worrying.

How many times must a man look up, before he can see the sky?

There is little sense in attempting to change external conditions, you must first change inner beliefs, then outer conditions will change accordingly.

I've always wanted a C trumpet on top, to have that same kind of facility without shouting.

What is it like to fall asleep? What happens? Where do we go? Why don't we remember? Since childhood most of us have wondered about the mystery of sleep.

Don't fear the darkness if you carry the light within.

We can cross the rivers of doubt and discouragement on the bridge of faith even before we get to them