“The whole vast challenge of a continent waiting to be exploited, combined to produce a prevailing materialism and an American drive bent as much, if not more, on money, property, and power than was true of the Old World from which we had fled.”

To explain strange and irregular phenomena of nature, haphazard events and, above all, irrational human conduct. They exist to bear the burden of all things that cannot be comprehended except by supernatural intervention or design.

The costliest myth of our time has been the myth of the Communist monolith.

A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests.

Words are seductive and dangerous material, to be used with caution.

For me, the card catalog has been a companion all my working life. To leave it is like leaving the house one was brought up in.

To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse.

The nastiness of women [in the 14th century] was generally perceived at the close of life when a man began to worry about hell, and his sexual desire in any case fading.

Government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others – only to lose it over themselves.

Vainglory, however, no matter how much medieval Christianity insisted it was a sin, is a motor of mankind, no more eradicable than sex.

The clergy [in the 14th century] on the whole were probably no more lecherous or greedy or untrustworthy than other men, but because they were supposed to be better or nearer to God than other men, their failings attracted more attention.

An essential element for good writing is a good ear: One must listen to the sound of one’s own prose.

One must stop conducting research before one has finished. Otherwise, one will never stop and never finish.

Christianity in its ideas was never the art of the possible.

The better part of valor is to spend it learning to live with differences, however hostile, unless and until we can find another planet.

Business offers a kind of power, but only to the very successful at the top, and without the dominion and titles and red carpets and motorcycle escorts of public office.

Voluntary self-directed religion was more dangerous to the Church than any number of infidels.

Each year we send more and receive less.

I’m projected as an ambulance chaser, but I’m more the ambulance. People call me because they know I will come…. I have never fought a case where they didn’t ask me to come.

The stage is different ; there’s more to act. There are more demands put on you, more experiences to go through.

I am not afraid of Trump; I am more afraid of the people that think his ideas are good.

Before Alar, there was EDB, a potent human carcinogen allowed in the grain supply and other food for more than a decade after it was known to be dangerous.

I’ve often said there’s two kinds of actors. There’s a more gregarious type and the shy type.

I’m more important to me than any body you can mention. Do you know that?

The thing that interests me far more than anything is creating music, songwriting and arranging, and in that context drumming itself is a means to an end.