...the indispensable requirement for a good newspaperman - as eager to tell a lie as the truth.

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.

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage. H. L. MENCKEN

Science does nothing for man spiritually, and organized religion demands blind faith in illogical liturgy that was never meant to be taken literally!

I think our family motto is to always work hard, be humble, kind, and thoughtful about others around us.

He should voicemail get open!

While I was in college becoming a good Catholic I was also becoming a writer - one haunted by Catholicism.

There are so many difficult things and stories can make them palatable. That's the way I have always felt.

Words may deeply wound us, but we must run that risk to be free.

The fundamental challenge of achieving anything you wish is first to convince yourself to do it. Once you are totally convinced of its value, you'll find a way to get it done.

Love conquers in the long run. It won't do to become impatient - wait, wait - patience is bound to give success. . . .

See it better than it is or you have no future, without vision there is no possibility of improvement