A human being is a problem in search of a solution.

Do you care about freedom? Dreams may have inspired it, and wishes prompted it, but only war and weapons have made it yours.

We are born of risen apes, not fallen angels.

Aggressiveness is the principal guarantor of survival.

We were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments?

Man is a fraction of the animal world. Our history is an afterthought, no more, tacked to an infinite calendar. We are not so unique as we should like to believe.

What could not be denied was that in vast segments of the animal world natural selection of the most qualified individuals took place not by competition for females but by competition for space.

There is a virtue, I must presume, in shamelessness, since by placing on parade the things one does not know, one discovers that no one else knows either.

The dog barking at you from behind his master's fence acts for a motive indistinguishable from that of his master when the fence was built.

Human war has been the most successful of our cultural traditions.

The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses.

Psychologists have clinically observed that overly prolonged grief in the bereaved usually signifies a poor relationship with the one who died.

I watch movies and sports. I can count on the fingers of my hand the number of times I have watched an hour show. I never watch a half-hour show, and I never watch myself.

The movies I've made about the South, they were my experience and it's something that I know.

things which in my mind blossom will stumble beneath a clumsiest disguise appear capable of fragility and indecision

I am the slime oozing out from your TV set. You will obey me while I lead you, and eat the garbage while I feed you.

The mid-life crisis is just those times when you're not so into the things you were when you were younger.

My happy thoughts help create my healthy body.

There's an older generation that feels like they know what the future should be. And then there's your generation that may have an idea of what the future should be, but that could evolve.

The things we should focus on in any life shouldn't be what we've lost, but what we've gained

In this complex world, the best way to survive is to be genuine.