John Quotes

Positano bites deep. It is a dream place that isn’t quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you have gone.

Man himself has become our greatest hazard and our only hope. So that today, St. John the apostle may well be paraphrased: In the end is the Word, and the Word is Man - and the Word is with Men.

Poetry is the mathematics of writing and closely kin to music.

The curious hocus-pocus of criticism I can't take seriously. It consists in squirreling up some odd phrases and then waiting for a book to come running by.

People don't want advice...only corroboration.

I need a dog pretty badly. I dreamed of dogs last night. They sat in a circle and looked at me and I wanted all of them.

Every man in a bank hates what the bank does and yet the bank does it.

I wonder why it is that when I plan a route too carefully, it goes to pieces, whereas if I blunder along in blissful ignorance aimed in a fancied direction I get through with no trouble.

With a few exceptions people don't want money. They want luxury and they want love and they want admiration.

When you know a friend is there you do not go to see him. Then he's gone and you blast your conscience to shreds that you did not see him.

We think of strangers as stronger and better than we are.

I don't think there is a single sentence in this whole book [East of Eden] that does not either develop character, carry on the story or provide necessary background.

Kino heard the little splash of morning waves on the beach. It was very good -- Kino closed his eyes again to listen to his music.

We have usurped many of the powers we once ascribed to God.

A boy gets to be a man when a man is needed. Remember this thing. I have known boys forty years old because there was no need for a man.

With knowledge there is no hope,... without hope I would sit motionless, rusting like unused armor.

...to find where you are going, you must know where you are.

Government is so big today that more than half the population gets a major part of its income from the state.

Where I live in Manhattan and where I work at ABC, people say conservative the way people say child molester.

The people who have the biggest passion for restricting other people's behavior are the very people we should worry about most. Unfortunately, they keep running for office.

As a free person, I ought to be allowed if I'm dying to take something.

Asking someone in the media about liberal bias is like asking a fish about water. 'Huh, what are you talking about? Where is it?'

Central authority is bad. The bias should be for freedom. And without a central authority, there are lots of little authorities, and we learn which ones to trust.

Current government regulation interferes with honest voluntary exchanges by imposing arbitrary terms and requiring tons of paperwork disclosing information no one wants anyway.

If government were less important in our lives, politicians would have fewer goodies to trade. In return, we'd have more money and more freedom.

The politicians should not tell the people to shut up.

'Live and let life' used to be a noble approach to life. Now you're considered compassionate if you demand that government impose your preferences on others.

Madoff's scam was small compared to Ponzi schemes the government itself runs: Social Security and Medicare.

Government has no money of its own. All it does is take resources from one group and given them to another.

Nothing keeps a company honest and efficient like the threat of other companies coming along and taking its business away.

I'm an American. I'm for prosperity. I've discovered, from 40 years of reporting, that what creates prosperity is limited government.

Companies don't get rich hurting their customers.

Why, in our "free" country, do Americans meekly stand aside and let the state limit our choices, even when we are dying?

Isn't allowing people a choice what America is all about?

Take away the government's monopoly, and private groups will do it better.

No transaction happens unless it is voluntary. It only happens if both of you think you win.

It’s not about electing the right people. It’s about a narrowing their responsibilities.

I saw how the regulation I called for made things worse, didn't help consumers and simple competition was better. And I started praising business and occasionally criticizing regulation.

Prosperity comes from leaving people free in a legal system that respects their persons and property so they can pursue their dreams while taking responsibility for their actions.

Private businesses ought to get to discriminate.

Markets are too complex to manipulate beneficially.

Freedom works, and government, when it grows beyond the barest minimum, keeps people poor.

The one thing I've learned is that stuttering in public is never as bad as I fear it will be.

God continues to speak through what He has spoken.

If Christ seldom makes offers without demands, He also seldom makes demands without offers. He offers His strength to enable us to meet His demands.

The meaning of atonement is not to be found in our penitence evoked by the sight of Calvary, but rather in what God did when in Christ on the cross He took our place and bore our sin.

Never patronise someone who knows they don't deserve it, for they will be quick to compliment your failures.

In its narrowest acceptation, order means obedience. A government is said to preserve order if it succeeds in getting itself obeyed.

My father never permitted anything which I learnt to degenerate into a mere exercise of memory. He strove to make the understanding not only go along with every step of the teaching but...precede it.

Every opinion which embodies somewhat of the portion of truth which the common opinion omits, ought to be considered precious, with whatever amount of error and confusion that truth may be blended.