By that time [1966], we did begin to get some protests [against Vietnam War]. But not from liberal intellectuals; they never opposed the war.

Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can't afford the time to think.

The general population doesn't know what's happening, and it doesn't even know that it doesn't know.

That's the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don't work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.

Jingoism, racism, fear, religious fundamentalism: these are the ways of appealing to people if you're trying to organize a mass base of support for policies that are really intended to crush them.

There's a good reason why nobody studies history, it just teaches you too much.

The world is a very puzzling place. If you're not willing to be puzzled, you just become a replica of someone else's mind.

Democratic societies can't force people. Therefore they have to control what they think.

Nobody should have any illusions. The United States has essentially a one-party system and the ruling party is the business party.

If you want to control a population... give them a God to worship.

A language is not just words. It's a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community, a whole history that creates what a community is. It's all embodied in a language.

That which is capable of perceiving objective reality is, in Sufism, the human soul (ruh).

Search for the perfect church if you will; when you find it, join it, and realize that on that day it becomes something less than perfect.

It is not only old and early impressions that deceive us; the charms of novelty have the same power.

For a long time, I really struggled with the idea of being an actor because I really felt that I should be in the Peace Corps.

Alaska itself is an unusual state.

Immortality is a chancy thing; it cannot be promised or earned. Perhaps it cannot even be identified for what it is.

Every day Saddam remains in power with chemical weapons, biological weapons, and the development of nuclear weapons is a day of danger for the United States.

Sometimes it's not the optimist you need, but another pessimist to walk beside you.

History will see advertising as one of the real evil things of our time. It is stimulating people constantly to want things, want this, want that.

Never content just to be, America is also obliged to mean; America signifies, hence its constant and riveting vulnerability to illusion.