If voting could actually change anything, it would be illegal.

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.

God is willing to walk the earth again incarnate in us.

Everybody else cain't be wrong all the time. Sometimes it's gotta be you.

I'm very proud of my Scottish blood.

Obviously like many of us, I love music, and I hate music sometimes.

I made a conscious decision when I was about 17 years old to strive towards mediocrity. I completely abandoned the idea of grandeur and importance, and I wanted to be mediocre.

The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.

I think Melbourne is by far and away the most interesting place in Australia, and I thought if I ever wrote a novel or crime novel of any kind, I had to set it here.

I didn't spend money on nothin'. Besides my daughter, bucket hats, and weed.

The wound that's made by fire will heal, But the wound that's made by tongue will never heal.

I've always felt myself as being a serious singer.