It costs $30,000 to $50,000 per year to send someone to jail. You don't have to pay so much to send someone to school at Johns Hopkins.

Neither tolerance nor intolerance is grounded in science and reason, but they are themselves acts of faith grounded in social custom and the politics of expediency and power.

Compulsory sports for those who by temperament or physique do not qualify may be a disaster. . . . The repercussions may be extreme . . . and they may be very long-lasting, even throughout adulthood.

Philosophy is to religion as psychoanalysis is to pseudoscience

Most men, if you just tell them what to do in a businesslike fashion, will follow directions without thinking about it. One proceeds on the assumption that they'll do as they're told, and they do.

The only source of knowledge is experience.

For me it's always contingent on getting a sound-the sound always suggests what kind of melody it should be. So it's always sound first and then the line afterwards.

Saying, 'I'm sorry' is the same as saying, 'I apologize.' Except at a funeral.

I am hoping that, with the added wisdom of old age, I can still look ahead for an improvement in tone, line, colour and composition.

I write for the still, small possibility of justice.

I work out two, two and a half hours a day. For 'Immortals,' it was body-weight stuff: crunches, pullups, and martial arts-based cardio.

The gladiator lays his plans after he enters the arena.

I grew up going to musicals with my mom here in New York, going to Broadway. I used to be in musicals in high school.