When I read it ["Tough Guys Don't Dance"], I don't wince, which is all I ever ask for a book I write.

Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing.

A modern democracy is a tyranny whose borders are undefined; one discovers how far one can go only by traveling in a straight line until one is stopped.

The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level.

Khomeini has offered us the opportunity to regain our frail religion ... faith in the power of words.

There was that law of life, so cruel and so just, that one must grow or else pay more for remaining the same.

Any war that requires the suspension of reason as a necessity for support is a bad war.

America is a hurricane, and the only people who do not hear the sound are those fortunate if incredibly stupid and smug White Protestants who live in the center, in the serene eye of the big wind.

I was thinking that surgeons had to be the happiest people on earth. To cut people up and get paid for it-that's happiness, I told myself.

Love asks us that we be a little braver than is comfortable, a little more generous, a little more flexible. It means living on the edge more than we care to.

Reaching consensus in a group is often confused with finding the right answer.

Too often, opinion is a lens polished by the grit of bias. And as I stare through my own lens, I might ask how much polish can the grit of bias actually create?

Your desire to make art -- beautiful or meaningful or emotive art -- is integral to your sense of who you are.

Being determined delinquents, Peyton and I jumped the barricades and wandered around the dilapidated interior.

As your president, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of the hateful foreign ideology. Believe me.

There's no worse feeling in the world than realizing the play you've directed doesn't work.

I think as a human being, if you can do something to impact someone's life, that's about the greatest accomplishment you can have.

You always be like, I hope I'm ready.

What bothers me about TV is that it tends to take our minds off our minds.

It is stupid on my part to think of banning the media.

Honestly, I don't recommend anyone get into music. If you have something else that you're good at, do that instead. This is a really tough world to live in.