John Quotes

You cannot clap with one hand alone.

Do your homework or hire wise experts to help you. Never jump into a business you have no idea about.

By facing our challenges and overcoming them, we grow stronger, wiser, and more compassionate.

While there are many problems, if one focuses on the bigger picture there are numerous reasons to be thankful for living in a time of remarkable progress and wonderful possibilities for the future.

Hate, like prayer, changes the person involved in the activity, not the person the activity is aimed at.

Thanksgiving being thankful or grateful results in more to be thankful for.

Humility about how little I know has encouraged me to listen more carefully and more wisely.

High ethics and religious principles form the basis for success and happiness in every area of life.

Be very careful. Giving because we think we will get something back will not work. You must be 100 percent willing to give and never experience any return, or it will not work.

As we begin to praise ourselves and our world, we begin to blossom in ways that are beautiful to behold.

Anybody who had come up with a new concept would have been under suspicion for being out of step with the tradition or out of step with the teachings of the church.

The question is not is there a God, but is there anything else except God? God is everyone and each of us is a little bit.

The government of India regulates nearly everything, so there's very little progress; whereas in Hong Kong the government keeps its hands off... and the standard of living has multiplied.

I'm really convinced that our descendants a century or two from now will look back at us with the same pity that we have toward the people in the field of science two centuries ago.

If governments encourage people to become more spiritual there will be a reduction in healthcare costs.

Politicians who are willing to spend too much are the ones who get reelected.

I carry out my work thus: I never use models or nature for the figure, drapery or anything else.

A lot of people are willing to pray or to put in work, but they're not willing to take true risks.

If you want to write the next great novel, but you think, No, this won't work because no one will buy it or it won't be any good, then you talk yourself out of taking a risk.

A great moment of clarity when I realized I'm dying. There's no reason to wait to do the things we want to do.

When you have a 13 year old child, you suddenly realize that you may need to pick a vocation.

If you want to get an education in how to get a story and how to survive, then get a street reporter job in New York City.

Every three or four shows, we have somebody that will come up onstage and propose marriage.

Over time, all of the markets should be combined.

I think there will be linkages between the U.S. and Europe and I think there will be linkages between the U.S. and Asia; that is probably a little further off.

Whatever I'm reading at the moment seems to influence whatever I'm writing.

The problem and privilege we all have is being alive in this century and able to read this language. It makes any list meaningless except the list of an illiterate.

People have laughed at all great inventors and discoverers.

Most publishers seem very reluctant to publish short story collections at all; they bring them out in paperback, often disguised as novels.

I usually like whatever I've recently finished best.

I started writing, or rather, thinking, stories as a child, and at that time the reason was very clear.

Today's robots are very primitive, capable of understanding only a few simple instructions such as 'go left', 'go right', and 'build car'.

It is not possible . . . to concentrate enough military planes with military loads over a modern city to destroy that city.

I'd just like to see - in writing about baseball - more energy and better craft, minus statistical bludgeoning and invective.

Except in expert hands, stats can get in the way of story; an array of data that might better be presented in a table instead clogs up sentences.

Although the world proved not yet ready for the brotherhood of baseball, that would be only a matter of time, baseball magnates believed.

Planning to play: that's what saving for retirement is today - and it is antithetical to the nature of play, fully within the definition of work, and blissfully ignorant of the reality of death.

Why we play as children is not because it is our work or because it is how we learn, though both statements are true; we play because we are wired for joy, it is imperative as human beings.

Keep score, which is what the Talmud recognizes as a distinction between work and play that renders a game unfit for the Sabbath.

Just because I am increasingly bored by sabermetric arcana doesn't mean anyone else has to be; it remains good for people who like that sort of thing.

I am opposed, naturally, to regurgitating anecdote or any other form of received wisdom, unless it is characterized as such.

Unbuttered toast is a substance half complete, and to be forced to eat it in that state is necessarily to feel deprived.

The Obama experiment has failed.

But what shouldn't happen is, you shouldn't have the taxpayers from states that are managing their situations well paying for those states that are not.

I think the thing with Medicare - and a lot of this - I should say, with Medicaid - and this is going to depend - states are going to be in a position to have a lot of flexibility.

I tell people it's like shopping for a car.People are taking candidates out for a test drive, seeing what they like.

This is partly a function of approval ratings. People pay attention [to polls] and start saying, 'Lets take a more independent tack.' It is frankly self-interest, self-preservation.

There are more than 30 states, who either by statute or constitutional amendment, have defined marriage as being between a man and a woman.

I feel that I am best positioned to fight for America's future here in the trenches of the United States Senate.

We must work together to save and strengthen Social Security not just for my father's generation but also for my daughters' generation.