“But if somebody dies, if something happens to you, there is a normal process of depression, it is part of being human, and some people view it as a learning experience etc.”

It’s a tragedy that modernity has released this Ebola beast into the world. It renders humans untouchable, and that’s sickening.

Again, in an imaginary other universe, maybe we’d have done it. That’s the terrible truth that lies at the heart of each of us; that imponderable, ‘were I not Jewish, in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Germany, would I have gone down on the other side?’

I’m a big believer in that old cliché of thinking globally and acting locally.

Most people get into bands for three very simple rock and roll reasons: to get laid, to get fame, and to get rich.

90% of the divorces are initiated by women. That is really odd. Why? What’s going on? What’s the great discontent at the heart of it?

It’s like you asked me about the depression thing: you grope towards an understanding of whatever it is your going through, and it’s not personal, there are forces in play around you, and you seek to understand them and that way you can go on

Our problem is that everybody tries to heal each of the individual aspects of poverty, not poverty itself.

Music can’t change the world.

We’re looking at the singular condition of poverty. All the other individual problems spring from that condition… doesn’t matter if it’s death, aid, trade, AIDS, famine, instability, governance, corruption or war. All of that is poverty.

And whereas women had to fight to find their way into the workforce, men are now fighting to reclaim their place in the family structure.

So when I got to 50 I just thought, Hold on: I’m thin. I’ve got my hair. I’m well off. I survived, you know

They thought they were Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall. In fact, they were more like Tom and Jerry

It’s really very simple, Governor. When people are hungry they die. So spare me your politics and tell me what you need and how you’re going to get it to these people.

Human progress depends on unreasonable people. Reasonable people accept the world as they meet it; unreasonable people persist in trying to change it.

I don’t think anyone sets out to malign poor people but certainly that’s what we do through organizations such as the World Trade Organization, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

I’m sure I’m very difficult to live with because of my make-up and personality.

I view my pitching on how confident I was out there, period. And if I lose that confidence, I can become a prisoner of my own mind.

Americans like to believe we can overcome all obstacles and always triumph in the end, but that’s not real life and a steady diet of stories like that will give you a pretty unhealthy view of reality.

Modern historians have suggested that in his last years he (Richard II) was overtaken by mental disease, but that is only a modern view of the malfunction common to 14th century rulers: inability to inhibit impulse.

This is a wonderful book, unique and engaging. Diaconis and Graham manage to convey the awe and marvels of mathematics, and of magic tricks, especially those that depend fundamentally on mathematical ideas.

In the debate between those who believe in essentially unregulated markets and others who hold that reasonable regulation diminishes market excesses without inhibiting their basic function, the subprime situation unfortunately provides ammunition for the latter view.

From an entertainment point of view, the Solar System has been a bust. None of the planets turns out to have any real-estate potential, and most of them are probably even useless for filming Dune sequels.

The weird thing is that I hate to fly, and the quote that I give people is that every time I get off a plane, I view it as a failed suicide attempt.

I could never work out whether we were to view religion as a life-insurance policy or a life sentence.