This Sarah Palin phenomenon is very curious. I think somebody watching us from Mars—they would think the country has gone insane.

Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can't afford the time to think.

The general population doesn't know what's happening, and it doesn't even know that it doesn't know.

That's the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don't work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.

Jingoism, racism, fear, religious fundamentalism: these are the ways of appealing to people if you're trying to organize a mass base of support for policies that are really intended to crush them.

There's a good reason why nobody studies history, it just teaches you too much.

The world is a very puzzling place. If you're not willing to be puzzled, you just become a replica of someone else's mind.

Democratic societies can't force people. Therefore they have to control what they think.

Nobody should have any illusions. The United States has essentially a one-party system and the ruling party is the business party.

If you want to control a population... give them a God to worship.

A language is not just words. It's a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community, a whole history that creates what a community is. It's all embodied in a language.

Thank you, " she said. "For making me have dinner with you."He laughed. "Next time maybe I'll really torture you and take you to a movie."Next time.

The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.

I switch between fixed forms and free verse often, and enjoy being a poet who can "swing both ways," so to speak.

The results have no relation to reality. We won't give legitimacy to something that is illegitimate.

Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth, the man who would make his fortune no matter where he started.

Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did.

I cherish my privacy, and woe betide anyone who tries to interfere with that.

My religion recognizes no obligation to resolve doubt other than through rational means; and it commands no mere faith in eternal truths

My favourite subject at school was avoiding unnecessary work.

It is by suffering that human beings become angels.