“The Moral Majority supports legislators who oppose abortions but also oppose child nutrition and day care. From their perspective, life begins at conception and ends at birth.”

It seems to me that politicians ought to use the same words as other people.

But here too it should be noted that the President’s approach was to first ask the repressive and brutal Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden to us, and only after that government refused to do that did we invade.

The left and the right live in parallel universes. The right listens to talk radio, the left’s on the Internet and they just reinforce one another. They have no sense of reality. I have now one ambition: to retire before it becomes essential to tweet.

Serving in Congress is like having a second shot at high school.

For the trustees to turn away from the entirely reasonable request of the students that a hearing-impaired individual be made president of the college is a very unfortunate expression of insensitivity.

The best antidote to prejudice is reality.

I do not think that any self-respecting radical in history would have considered advocating people’s rights to get married, join the Army, and earn a living as a terribly inspiring revolutionary platform.

I wouldn’t want [gay marriage] to go to the United States Supreme Court now because that homophobe Antonin Scalia has too many votes on this current court.

Take free speech: most of the tough cases on free speech involve very unpleasant people saying very obnoxious things.

Most people who are activists and are concerned about issues get their information from sources which reinforce their opinions and give them the facts that they want to hear.

We all have the right to call each other names. Rudeness is a deeply held constitutional value.

Ridicule is about the most powerful weapon possible.

I’m used to being in the minority. I’m a left-handed, gay Jew. I’ve never felt, automatically, a member of any majority.

The single most important thing you can do politically for gay rights is to come out. Not to write a letter to your congressman but to come out.

But when others suggested that the poor should not simply be the objects of these programs but also the subjects – that they should be actively involved in shaping the programs, making decisions about how to spend the money etc. – some of the previous supporters reconsidered.

They appear to have become so attached to their outrage that they are even more outraged that they won’t be able to be outraged anymore.

Be not entangled in this world of days and nights; Thou hast another time and space as well.

At the end of the day, I want to be part of the same conversation as Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, Dave Chappelle, Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor.

It’s much more fun to be full of hope than pessimism any day of the week.

Whenever I have a bad day I just think of these people.

The average American worker has fifty interruptions a day, of which seventy percent have nothing to do with work.

I don’t think I’ll ever act again. I have so many wonderful memories, but those days are over.

If you really want your hair to look good, just don’t wash it for a day. That’s my secret.

My advice to teens is to try and do something that scares you every day because it’s the only way you can test how far you can really go.