Alan Quotes

You can always rely on a society of equals taking it out on the women.

We are not saved in order to be a blessing to other people--you will be that inevitably--but primarily we are saved in order to be conformed to the likeness of Jesus Christ, God's Son.

I made up the term "object-oriented," and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind.

The Judge does not make the law. It is people that make the law. Therefore if a law is unjust, and if the Judge judges according to the law, that is justice, even if it is not just.

In the real world in which we live, you always have to choose between evils. And in choosing between evils, you have to have moral criteria for how to make those choices.

If you can last until you're 40 years old, hopefully you'll be mature enough to figure out the rest of the years.

The religious idea of God cannot do full duty for the metaphysical infinity.

Authority allows two roles: the torturer and the tortured. Twists people into joyless mannequins that fear and hate, while culture plunges into the abyss.

Those of you who are not aware of my brilliant career as a stand up comic, I'm not aware of it either so we might well wonder what we're doing here.

Look at him now, poor fellow. That's what a dose of reality does for you...Never touch the stuff myself, you understand. Find it gets in the way of the hallucinations.

Perspective is worth 80 IQ points.

Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way.

You are destined to become the peer of those you most respect because the greatness you perceive in them is your own.

You cannot judge what should bring others joy, and others cannot judge what should bring you joy.

Western religions are more concerned with behavior, doctrine, and belief than with any transformation of the way in which we are aware of ourselves and our world.

Our view of reality is like a chart of the sea - the truer it is, the less likely we will become lost.

The Art of Being: A state of wholeness in which the mind functions freely and easily, without the sensation of a second mind or ego standing over it with a club.

I made it, Ma - Carnegie Hall. And I didn't have to practice.

We will have to take risks, to chance failure, to be willing to walk away from the familiar paths that have brought us to this point.

A life without change is not a life; it is a stagnant pool.

Up to a point, it is better to just let the snags [bugs] be there than to spend such time in design that there are none.

I'm me and nobody else; and whatever people think I am or say I am, that's what I'm not, because they don't know a bloody thing about me.

Where do I begin and end in space? I have relations to the sun and air which are just as vital parts of my existence as my heart.

Making music is still what keeps a fire going on in me.

There is a school of thought that believes that sleep is for the night. You appear to be out to disprove them.

An important technology first creates a problem and then solves it.

It is not the gardener that makes the garden. It is the garden that makes the gardener.

The dimension of cultural equity needs to be added to the humane continuum of liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and social justice.

There are many levels of truth.

It simply cannot be disputed that for decades the Palestinian leadership was more interested in there not being a Jewish state than in there being a Palestinian state.

For me, there is very little difference between magic and art. To me, the ultimate act of magic is to create something from nothing: It's like when the stage magician pulls the rabbit from the hat.

Actually I like working kind of fast, because if you got it, why bother doing it over and over?

Never Have Your Dog Stuffed is really advice to myself, a reminder to myself not to avoid change or uncertainty, but to go with it, to surf into change.

Jean Paul Sartre says in "No Exit" that hell is other people. Well, our task in life is to make it heaven. Or at least earth.

My history of lending money from banks is that they want to know the ins and outs of the backside of a duck.

I don't know what I'd have become if I hadn't been a footballer; I wrote down 'dustbin man' on a careers questionnaire at school till my dad made me change it to 'joiner'.

They are enlightened who join in this play knowing it as play, for people suffer only because they take as serious what the gods made for fun.

Life is like a box of sardines and we are all looking for the key.

Lisp isn't a language, it's a building material.

The best way to lose weight is to know that you are light.

Every Christian is a sent one. There is no such thing as an unsent Christian.

Define what the product will do before you design how the product will do it.

We know that from time to time there arise among human beings people who seem to exude love as naturally as the sun gives out heat.

There are many mysteries in old age but the greatest, surely, is this: in those adverts for walk-in bathtubs, why doesn't all the water gush out when you get in?

Upgrade your past by seeing it with appreciation.

The purpose of life is not to fight against evil and misfortune; it is to unveil magnificence.

Happiness is the most insidious prison of all.

A comedy is just a tragedy interrupted, I once said. Do you finish with the kiss or when she opens her eyes to tell him she loves him and sees blonde hairs on his collar?

The best parts about writing a show are [its] first, second and 10th anniversaries. Everything else is relative levels of hell.

There are very few people on top of life, and the rest of us don't like them very much.