Oftentimes people get it wrong when they say we need to educate voters first and then give them power. I tend to favor giving them power first.

People think that the politician is just part of a system, and whether they're lying or not doesn't matter.

People respond to political characters in archetypal ways. A fun game is to think of a politician and ask, "Which god is that? Are they like Aries? Are they like Athena?"

One of the most dangerous things about Fox News isn't that it's right wing but that it's nihilistic. It takes away the capacity to believe in politics.

There is a long American tradition of suspicion of concentrated economic power because of its tendency to corrupt government and turn it from a democracy into a plutocracy.

My current goal is to change the way we think about antitrust and anti-monopoly.

I think the reason you see so many people dropping out of politics is because there's an anti-poetic strain in modern political discourse.

New York City is one of the most vulnerable cities in the world to climate change, so I see Keystone as the central threat to New York.

There's a tendency, especially among academics, to see politics as deeply dirty and deeply egotistical.

Creativity is essential to any kind of joyful living. Sometimes I act, sometimes I draw, I paint, I write poems. I can't imagine living without it.

A lot of politics plays at the level of myth, and if you understand that, then you feel like you have access to the secret language of politics.

He who writes well runs the civilization. Everyone else does the grunt work.

I am happy in every moment and every day. My happiness depends on me, not on the way.

Literature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others - because it's a tool to help us live and die with a little bit more wisdom, goodness, and sanity.

Pride is as loud a beggar as want, and a great deal more saucy

Don't get me wrong, I love literary fiction. It's faux literary fiction I can't stand.

I've done movies that nobody's seen, and that's no fun.

When you leave a place, it's best to leave.

Love, he thought as he held her to his heart, was an agony beyond compare.

Life has meaning for anyone who takes an interest in it.

I'm still very critical of myself, but I've learned to deal with it. You know that every at-bat is important, but it's not life and death.