They [Republicans] assume that military action always shows strength, while avoiding military action always shows weakness. That's just crazy.

Rising inequality is a cultural and economic cancer on a lot of different levels.

[Ronald]Reagan and[George W.] Bush were far more radical than other presidents.

There's no liberal equivalent of Donald Trump.

The ability to focus on a single task for an extended period is a talent that’s underappreciated - especially by extroverts, who continue to exercise an unhealthy hegemony over most workplaces.

Smart hiring managers in the modern world should be asking, “How long can you concentrate on a task before you have to take a break?” I wonder how many of them do?

If you don’t want your followers to give up in disgust, your inspiration needs to be in the service of goals that are at least attainable.

The younger you are, the more likely you are to have grown up in a (mostly) lead-free environment, and that means you're less likely to have committed a felony or gotten sent to prison.

Because prison sentences in America tend to be long, de-incarceration lags falling crime rates by a fair amount, but eventually it does catch up.

Black crime rates fell more steeply than white crime rates, and now black incarceration is falling more steeply than white incarceration.

Of course the system can be changed. Why would I bother spending 14 years of my life blogging if I didn't believe that?

Man needs what's worst in him in order to achieve what's best in him.

So I can’t explain why, for the next twenty minutes, I stand at the window quietly willing him with my mind to come inside and erase the distance between us.

Having power is not nearly as important as what you choose to do with it.

The island of the tonal, the way we see life, is there so we can get through our life. It was never intended to become a dictator that would usurp all other views of the world and banish them.

He that lives by the sight of the eye may grow blind.

Painting requires skill. Photography is created by the camera, and one cannot fully control what the camera sees. So people take many photographs because several must always be discarded.

I love all kinds of different music.

Relationships of trust depend on our willingness to look not only to our own interests, but also the interests of others.

The matinee audiences are different because they're mostly kids, a great percentage kids. So they respond to everything differently, but I understand what they do respond to.

Big minds have big ideas. Small minds use big ideas to justify bad ideas.