The Korean War, which China entered on the side of North Korea, fixed Mao's image in the United States as another unappeasable Communist.

Gandhi saw how people have to re-think their own individuality before engaging in political activity. Otherwise they're just playing the game that the adversary has set out.

In America, you don't even have proper holidays. It's really one of the most prosperous slave societies in history. People work their asses off all year long and get two weeks off! It's incredible.

The people who encouraged me weren't necessarily writers or readers themselves. They were people who were just pleased to see me devote my life to reading and writing.

I found it really disturbing to see a novelist writing a diatribe about Islam and Muslim radical extremists, blurring the distinction between the two.

The idea that human beings can make history, that is something quite unique to the modern West.

We need to infuse politics with ideas like compassion and empathy, and a sense that we live in an interdependent world.

The asymmetries of power that have shaped relations between the West and the rest of the world also exist in the realm of literary criticism.

Most suffering is human-made and avoidable. It's mostly in your head.

Freedom of speech doesn't guarantee great literature.

In the modern world, nationalism remains a very important force. We delude ourselves into thinking that globalization has made all of that redundant and that everyone just wants to be like America.

Maybe I'm dreaming you. Maybe you're dreaming me; maybe we only exist in each other's dreams and every morning when we wake up we forget all about each other.

My intent is to tell the truth as I know it, realizing that what is true for me may be blasphemy for others.

Play the man, Mastre Ridley; we shall this day light such a cndle, by God's grace in England, as I trust shall never be put out.

Falling in love is like death... they are both facts

I'm a pescatarian - I don't even eat meat!

Acting is not being emotional, but being able to fully express emotion.

First-rate people hire first-rate people; second-rate people hire third-rate people.

Innovation violates tradition--attacks it in public and steals from it in private.

We are growing up. We are growing up! Out of the idiocies - the ignorances of racism and sexism and ageism and all those ignorances.

Spank me, whip me, let me come back home. Break out the leather, baby.