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.

I'm hostile to men, I'm hostile to women, I'm hostile to cats, to poor cockroaches, I'm afraid of horses.

Feel guilty. Mourn this. But move on. Don't let it destroy you. Forgive yourself.

For three days after death hair and fingernails continue to grow but phone calls taper off.

All a musician can do is to get closer to the sources of nature, and so feel that he is in communion with the natural laws.

I've got to worry about Alonzo Mourning, because a year or two ago there was a chance that Alonzo Mourning wouldn't be standing here talking to you. That's the cold reality of it.

You earn the right to expect recognition by giving it! It's that simple

What's important at this time is to re-clarify the difference between hero and villain.

I've learned about marrying poetry and prose and making both accessible.

I'm interested in politics, what's going on in the world, how people behave and how your life is often in the hands of other people.

We prematurely write off people as failures. We are too much in awe of those who succeed and far too dismissive of those who fail.

How wrong it is for those who love, not to express their love.