I really believe in trying to increase the amount of useful information in the world and in being accurate in the sense that you can take what I say to the bank, even if you disagree with me.

A handkerchief can never be put in another pocket after it has been in one pocket. I don't walk under ladders. I have items of clothing that are lucky for me. That rotates, but I am luck-oriented.

Clearly, there has been a lack of imagination about how much can go wrong.

If you're someone people count on, particularly in difficult moments, that's a sign of a life lived honorably.

I have a file of letters and bits of ephemera from friends who have died. I have had lots of friends who died of AIDS.

Here’s the thing about rights. They’re not actually supposed to be voted on. That’s why they’re called rights.

I'm undoubtedly a liberal, which means that I'm in almost total agreement with the Eisenhower-era Republican party platform.

Hopefully life is long. Do stuff you will enjoy thinking about and telling stories about for many years to come. Do stuff you will want to brag about.

Bernie Sanders are the only person who talks about the kinds of things that might be driving people to support Donald Trump in such large numbers in the Republican Party.

Activism is setting a goal of something you would like to be different, and figuring out what would have to change to achieve that goal. It's sort of like math.

If you took a cracked pot and you cracked that cracked pot, you'd be approaching the level of cracked pottery we are talking about here.

There is a point when grief exceeds the human capacity to emote, and as a result one is strangely composed-

The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night.

In a world in which everyone cheats, it's the honest man who passes for a charlatan.

What if people knew they were recycled? Would that change anything?

Whenever I write for hotel reservations, I always enclose a set of rules I have made for the hotels.

Desks are terrible places, no matter how many wheels a chair might have. You can't do much about how drawers fill up.

But it was ever thus, all through my life: whenever I have diverged from custom and principle and uttered a truth, the rule has been that the hearer hadn't strength of mind enough to believe it.

If it ever seems to us that the world is a place where bad things only happen to good people, it is because we still believe that bad things happening to bad people is a good thing.

The virtue of hope is an orientation of the soul towards a transformation after which it will be wholly and exclusively love.

It's thematic in my career, if you look at most of my choices. It is some level of exploration of maternal angst and maternal heroism.