“All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.”

Some may remember, if you have good memories, that there used to be a concept in Anglo-American law called a presumption of innocence, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Rational discussion is useful only when there is a significant base of shared assumptions.

Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.

The United States and Britain loved him. He was supported until the last minute.

What happened in the missile crisis in October 1962 has been prettified to make it look as if acts of courage and thoughtfulness abounded.

It could be – and it has been argued, in my view rather plausibly, though neuroscientists don’t like it – that neuroscience for the last couple hundred years has been on the wrong track.

The invasion of Iraq, particularly, gave a big shot in the arm to the jihadi extremists.

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

I didn’t pay my taxes for years.

There’s very little dislike of Americans in the world, shown by repeated polls, and the dissatisfaction – that is, the hatred and the anger.

The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn’t pay his protection money.

I took no position on just where they stand on the scale of horrors relative to Auschwitz, the bombing of Chungking, Lidice, and so on.

The public is not to see where power lies, how it shapes policy, and for what ends. Rather, people are to hate and fear one another.

There are very few people who are going to look into the mirror and say, ‘That person I see is a savage monster;’ instead, they make up some construction that justifies what they do.

The Republican Party has become overwhelmingly so extreme that it’s hardly a traditional political party anymore.

There’s never been anything like the so-called Vietnam Syndrome: it’s mostly a fabrication.

I write all of my material. It’s all me.

All the women want to be with me, all the men want to be like me.

Deep down in the Christian’s life, always and all the time, there is to be a “no” to every demand that the flesh may make for recognition, and every demand that the flesh may make for approval.

If it wasn’t for pick-pockets I’d have no sex life at all.

Not all those who know their minds know their hearts as well.

It is often laziness and timidity that keep us within our duty while virtue gets all the credit.

A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire.

I am a weak and sinful man, but God put His hands on me, that is all.