If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's ...
I think if I've learned anything about friendship, it's to hang in, stay connected, fight for them, and let them fight for you. Don't walk away, don't be distracted, don't be too busy or tired, don't take them for granted. Friends are part of the glu...
Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes. It can no longer be of concern to great powers alone. For a nuclear disaster, spread by winds and waters and fear, could well engulf the great a...
Personally and politically, I'm extremely conservative for who I am, but I'm also very careful in my tone. I don't believe just because you're a conservative that you're angry. I can be plenty frustrated and not have to constantly portray myself as u...
Political elites vote in a more partisan fashion than the mass public; this tendency, too, follows a curve. The more you know, the more likely you are to vote in an ideologically consistent way, not just following your party but following a set of co...
Well, I don't know about objectivity, but I know for certain that it's always possible for a professional journalist who understands what he or she's up to to be fair, and that's the key word. Fairness to individuals, fairness to ideas, and to issues...
Greece has got something like 1,400 islands. There is so much of Greece you can't know even if you're Greek. It's sprinkled out all around the edge of the Aegean, all over the place. It's already a secret place wherever you go, even if it's somewhere...
I'm a vegetarian, and I long for people to eat less meat, but the thing to do is not to go, 'Eat! Less! Meat!' It's to say, 'I am fit as a flea and I'm 63, I haven't eaten meat for 40 years, and I never get diseases, I'm never ill, and I'm full of en...
When I first got sick, they told me I had a year to live, and I was writing my memoir really fast. There were really weird things happening with my nervous system and my heart and stuff, and it didn't look like I was gonna make it, so I was writing r...
I have a whole iPod full of exceptionally bad music, truly awful stuff including a disproportionate number of one hit wonders from the early '80s and lots of hair bands. I find it utterly impossible to love a song until I know every single word, so l...
I think that anyone who likes writing views 'The New Yorker' as the, you know, pinnacle of the publishing world. If you get 50 words published in 'The New Yorker,' it's more important than 50 articles in other places. So, would I love to one day writ...
We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans - because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That's why we paint, that's why we dare to love someon...
What I believe is that people have many modes in which they can be. When we live in cities, the one we are in most of the time is the alert mode. The 'take control of things' mode, the 'be careful, watch out' mode, the 'speed' mode - the 'Red Bull' m...
I think a lot of people saw 'Fight Club' and thought, 'Right, here's our next Che Guevara, here's our next Fidel Castro, here's someone who's going to wave the flag.' And I was like, 'No, it's just a book. And if I beat that drum, if I play that song...
But, the truth is and we can argue about whether this is right or not as long as we want to, but the fact is that women really do spend more time with their families. Until I can find a man who can tell me the dates of all of his nieces and nephews b...
I think some of the funniest and most artistic people I know are the ones who had a hard time at school. They often have humility and artistry. So, as much as I feel bad for kids who have to go through a rough childhood, I believe that if they can tu...
Sometimes I don't even pull my shoes off for six weeks at a time, except, you know, just to take a shower. I just take breaks between 24 hours a day, just a break now and then, it don't take me long to rest; maybe 20 to30 minutes sometime, or maybe a...
I always encourage women to let their individuality show by not covering up what they perceive as flaws. When I see a woman with the natural wrinkles of time on her face, I do not see the wrinkles at all, but when I see a woman trying to cover them u...
You know, I think there was a point in time when people didn't really understand how birth certificates were kept in the state of Hawaii, and now, I think that it's been pretty much disclosed that they used to have a long form and now they don't have...
I was spending a lot of time in Mumbai after I met my husband, who is Indian, and while parts of the city were prospering like crazy, I couldn't quite make out how the new wealth had changed the prospects of the majority of city residents who lived i...
Whether you're president or speaker, if you're wrong, we need to stand up and point it out. That's what Martin Luther King had talked about: being judged by the content of our character and not the color of our skin. So some of us pounded away on som...
