We tried to be as ready and solid as we could be, ... Filmmaking is always some form of chaos, and to what extent you're able to harness the chaos.

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.

We hope that, when the insects take over the world, they will remember with gratitude how we took them along on all our picnics.

The eagle may soar; beavers build dams.

The US has not imposed democracy in Yemen, its people have.

The whale is endangered, while the ant continues to do just fine.

Even pearls are dark before the whiteness of his teeth.

Money won't buy happiness, but it will pay the salaries of a large research staff to study the problem.

Youth is when you're allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve. Middle age is when you're forced to.

Now that women are jockeys, baseball umpires, atomic scientists, and business executives, maybe someday they can master parallel parking.

The government is shutting down the coal industry, they say it's cheaper to draw nuclear power off the French grid and cheaper to buy coal from Colombia.

I am the daughter of a psychologist. I know that the thing ostensibly being studied is rarely the thing being studied. (We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, p. 99)

Sometimes losing a series regular, if you're going to replace them with another series regular, that will put added pressure on your budget.

In Mozambique, the story goes, monkeys do not talk, because they know if they utter even a single word some man will come and put them to work.

What is past is past, there is a future left to all men, who have the virtue to repent and the energy to atone.

There is nothing hard inside the olive; nothing hard outside the nut.

I don't care what you label me as long as you call me president.

We worried about competitors, but it was an unreasonable fear. As a friend once pointed out, most gunshot wounds are self-inflicted.

The worst that can happen under monarchy is rule by a single imbecile, but democracy often means the rule by an assembly of three or four hundred imbeciles.

I knew that there were several, among African-American leaders, who had been put out by me because of my failure or reluctance to endorse Sen. Kerry

Problems are a major part of life. Don’t whine about why you always have problems…get on with the solving. Take it from someone who has been there–the solving gets easier as you go along.