Language is not a handmaiden to perception; it is perception; it gives shape to what would otherwise be inert and dead.

This is what language does: organize the world into manageable, and in some sense artificial, units that can then be inhabited and manipulated.

The purpose of a good education is to show you that there are three sides to a two-sided story.

Just as you can practice three-word sentences or sentences that travel across time zones, so can you practice writing sentences that breathe unshakable conviction.

Belief and knowledge are considered to be two different things. But they are not.

The first thing to ask when writing a sentence is 'What am I trying to do?'

Sentences can save us. Who could ask for anything more?

The idea - the core idea of humanism - is that the act of reading about great deeds will lead you to imitate them.

It is always incorrect to assume you can know what someone's moral convictions are based on their philosophical theories.

It may sound paradoxical, but verbal fluency is the product of many hours spent writing about nothing, just as musical fluency is the product of hours spent repeating scales.

Sentence writers are not copyists; they are selectors.

Everything worthwhile in life is attained through hard work. Happiness is not an exception.

Jazz should be much less about stress on technical exhibitionism and much more on emotional content.

I think about all my successes and failures and sometimes the failures stick in your head as much as the wins. But you do move on.

I do have a very chill - I can watch all my movies. A lot of people don't like to watch their work. I watch everything. All the time.

Nearly every glamorous, wealthy, successful career woman you might envy now started out as some kind of schlep.

The attempt to suppress an idea has always and everywhere proved a failure.

Since we are already Buddhas, happy and suffering Buddhas, wise and confused Buddhas, we are already Buddha.

Liberal Democrats are inexorably opposed to tax cuts, because tax cuts give people more power, and take away from the role of government.

Sincerity is romantic. I don't think you need gestures.

Every man has his fault, and honesty is his.