“Dad, as a good American, believed his newspapers.”

All truly great art is optimistic. The individual artist is happy in his creative work. The fact that practically all great art is tragic does not in any way change the above thesis.

You don’t have to be satisfied with America as you find it. You can change it. I didn’t like the way I found America some sixty years ago, and I’ve been trying to change it ever since.

Can you blame me if I am pursued by the thought of how much we could do to remedy social evils, if only we had an honest and disinterested press?

The first thing brought forth by the study of any religion, ancient or modern, is that it is based upon Fear, born of it, fed by it — and that it cultivates the source from which its nourishment is derived.

I am sustained by a sense of the worthwhileness of what I am doing; a trust in the good faith of the process which created and sustains me. That process I call God.

The old wanderlust had gotten into his blood, the joy of the unbound life, the joy of seeking, of hoping without limit.

Pessimism is mental disease. It means illness in the person who voices it, and in the society which produces that person.

American journalism is a class institution, serving the rich and spurning the poor.

It is the music which makes it what it is; it is the music which changes the place from the rear room of a saloon in back of the yards to a fairy place, a wonderland, a little comer of the high mansions of the sky.

All art is propaganda. It is universally and inescabably propaganda; sometimes unconsciously, but often deliberately, propaganda.

In a society dominated by the fact of commercial competition, money is necessarily the test of prowess, and wastefulness the sole criterion of power.

The proletarian writer is a writer with a purpose; he thinks no more of art for art’s sake than a man on a sinking ship thinks of painting a beautiful picture in the cabin; he thinks of getting ashore – and then there will be time enough for art.

Man is an evasive beast, given to cultivating strange notions about himself.

I just put on what the lady says. I’ve been married three times, so I’ve had lots of supervision.

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

One of the necessary accompaniments of capitalism in a democracy is political corruption.

My secrets must be poetic to be believable.

I will heal and Oh what a day that will be.

The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.

I’m going to give away a lot more than half my money. I’d be happy to give that to the government if the government put together programs that were like I’m giving away to charity, in which I believe the money is effectively used to help people.

Believe in your dreams and dream big. And then after you’ve done that, dream bigger.

If people say you shouldn’t pursue business around your passion they are haters. Don’t believe them.

When you affirm big, believe big and pray big, big things happen.

At its core, I believe leadership is about instilling confidence in others.