“The truth is that the whole episode was almost insane.”

Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power. And concentration of political power gives rise to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle.

That’s all accurate and of some importance, but of far more importance is the fact that elections just don’t take place, not in any meaningful sense of the term ‘election.’

In Kosovo, the U.S. has chosen a course of action that escalates atrocities and violence.

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 is almost nothing you can say that holds up as a generalization, because it depends on too many factors: size, modulation, the rest of the field, a certain consistency that color has with forms, and the statement you’re trying to make.

It is remarkable that men, when they differ in what they think considerable, will be apt to differ in almost everything else; their difference begets contradiction; contradiction begets heat; heat quickly rises into resentment, rage, and ill-will; thus they differ in affections, as they differ in judgment.

I really feel the novel has certain conveniences about it and has something so fundamental about it you could almost say that as long as there is paper, there is going to be the novel.

To destroy a man is difficult, almost as difficult as to create one: it has not been easy, nor quick, but you Germans have succeeded. Here we are, docile under your gaze; from our side you have nothing more to fear; no acts of violence, no words of defiance, not even a look of judgment.

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.

When i’m wasted, i can almost forget who i am,” he said, his smile fading slightly. “i know i’m still there, but only barely. It’s a good place to be.” he tipped back the thermos, eyes on the dark sea straight ahead

I had that. I could almost feel the miles between us shrinking, as if we were at two ends of some invisible elastic thread.

Painting is something that you need to do, if not every day, then certainly most days. It is almost like being a pianist: if you stop, you lose something.