The west was involved in toppling the Mossadegh government. That ultimately led to the Iranian revolution.

There are things you break that can't be put back together again. And Kashmir may be one of them.

Rock and roll music - the music of freedom frightens people and unleashes all manner of conservative defense mechanisms.

What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.

One of the extraordinary things about human events is that the unthinkable becomes thinkable.

Language is courage: the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true.

‘Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’ Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.

In the cookie of life, friends are the chocolate chips.

Language upon a silvered tongue affords enchantment enough.

The whole story of migration and what that has done in interconnecting the planet is obviously something I've written about a lot.

faith without doubt is addiction

Real education doesn't make your life easy. It complicates things and makes everything messy and disturbing. But the alternative, Elloren Gardner, is to live your life based on injustice and lies.

Why won’t you help me?
You have to able to manage on your own.

Africa had a way of coming back and simply covering everything up again.

Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; they made no such demand upon those who wrote them.

One of the Seven [wise men of Greece] was wont to say: That laws were like cobwebs, where the small flies are caught and the great break through.

That is simply the most beautiful publishing office in the world, with that cranky old building in that wonderful park.

Heroine: girl who is perfectly charming to live with, in a book.

I'm not writing for myself. I'm writing as an educator, I'm writing to stimulate others.

One of the best programmers I ever hired had only a High School degree; he's produced a lot of great software, has his own news group, and made enough in stock options to buy his own nightclub.

Books are necessary to correct the vices of the polite; but those vices are ever changing, and the antidote should be changed accordingly should still be new.