Human beings are attracted to novelty: to probe the 'adjacent possible.' We didn't stay in the caves. We didn't stay on the planet, and soon we won't stay within the limitations of our biology. We move forward. We transcend our limits. We go to the m...
On a certain level, I don't think there is an answer to what the American way is, because it is constantly being re-defined. It's also been exploited and capitalized upon and politicized by one side or the other to the point that a certain degree of ...
I remember being out here at the Sunset Marquis, and whoever knocked on the door, I would take that picture that I was writing and I would put that in the typewriter, so when I had the meeting, they would say: 'Oh, you're working on it right now?'
In school, when we lived in New Jersey, we went to Broadway a lot, so I saw a lot of Broadway plays, and I just loved being able to see people play a different character and, you know, be able to be themselves at the end of the night. So, I've always...
As our larynxes descended, we were able to make sounds with our mouths in new and far more expressive ways. Verbal language soon overtook physical gesturing as the primary means of communication for all human beings except Italians. (Earth (The Book)...
If [literature] should turn into pure propaganda or pure entertainment, society will slip back into the sty of the immediate -- which is to say, the memoryless existence of hymenoptera and gastropods. None of this is so important, to be sure. The wor...
We tend to think of heroes only in terms of violent combat, whether it's against enemies or a natural disaster. But human beings also perform radical acts of compassion; we just don't talk about them, or we don't talk about them as much.
Instead of putting someone in prison for being a hooligan, give him a choice. He may have beaten someone up and he's got eight years, but tell him you can do eight years inside or spend five years in the Army. Put him in the Parachute Regiment, they'...
There is no 'ultimate goal of therapy.' Thinking there is some ultimate or universal goal of therapy is one of the most fundamental errors of our field. To me, that concept is rather arrogant, as if therapists were some kind of spiritual experts who ...
I was being ridiculed for going to school... But, you see, I had looked hard at the other musicians and the whole show-business scene... They were doing with jazz musicians what they usually reserved for rock n' roll cats: making them overnight succe...
I decided very early on that it took too much of my energy to pretend to be someone else. People will make up their minds about me whatever I do or say, but at least I know I am being true to myself.
Because you know how you say I've got to really get down and really do some training and then of course, you never do or you do it for a couple of weeks and slough it back off again but I'm being forced to do something that I really want to do and I ...
I've always been a very careful sailor. I know, me and being careful - doesn't really sound right, does it? But when I sail, I take it seriously and take along spares for everything. You have to be careful when you're 1,500 miles from land. There's n...
Anyone working in the media can tell you that there seems to be an always-ready-to-explode segment of the populace for whom offense is a fate worse than anything imaginable. You'd think offense is one of the most calamitous things that could happen t...
We were trying to get all of the planes down out of the sky. And we watched as the towers of the World Trade Center collapsed - something no one expected and anticipated. And you could sit there and see and be aware that thousands of people were at t...
The relation to the other is not epistemological, but ethical, and the whole attempt to accomodate or account for the other within the confines of my experience already constitutes a breach of this fundamental ethical relation. The other is precisely...
Conservatives believe in the ties that bind us. Society is stronger when we make vows to each other and we support each other. I don’t support gay marriage in spite of being a conservative. I support gay marriage because I am a conservative.
There are many aspects to success; material wealth is only one component. ...But success also includes good health, energy and enthusiasm for life, fulfilling relationships, creative freedom, emotional and psychological stability, a sense of well-bei...
Its appearance was greeted with cries of rapture, and following a brief struggle over possesion of the volume, William rescued it before it should be torn to pieces, but allowed himself to be induced to read some of the passages aloud, his dramatic r...
You can't sing about the same things as you did when you were 20; it would be ridiculous to sing about, I don't know, being in the quad. You can't really write about mortgage payments or stuff like that... but you can talk about 'let's make the world...
People, most especially those who have known ease in this life, care more about being prospered than refined. It's always about what they can get from God, not what they can do for others, unless they can call attention to it for others to see.
