“If we try to engineer outcomes, if we overturn tradition to make everyone the same, we ruin society. If we upset tradition to allow for an equal shot at the starting gate, everyone wins, except for the charlatans and would be dictators.”

The human spirit needs to accomplish, to achieve, to triumph to be happy.

I am back in LA now. And I keep thinking back to my time in New York after the bombings…. I was crying so much I could not see, and the other diners joined in, and I thought, What do you do with such atheistic evil?

Hollywood is largely about scammers and con men. It was my main livelihood for about 25 years, and the scams were beautiful and ugly, cheap and expensive, but, wow, were there a lot of scammers.

The ordinary American – as far as I can tell – knows so much less than he did fifty years ago and has such poor work habits compared with fifty years ago that the average multiplicand of knowledge/capabilities is a much smaller number than it was in 1961.

The first step in getting what you want from life-decide what you want.

I have to tell you I never in my life anticipated getting this old, this fast. It seems as if I were 25 just a few days ago.

I feel as if I’m in on a pass and am damn lucky to have whatever I have. It could all be taken away in a second.

Prime-time network television has become an island without religion in an ever-more-religious America.

Emperor Sid Caesar is gone to eternity himself now. He takes with him the gratitude of every one of us who first learned the relief of laughter from this genuinely great performer.

We are mortgaging ourselves to foreigners on a scale that would make George Washington cry. Every day – every single day – we borrow a billion dollars from foreigners to buy petroleum from abroad, often from countries that hate us.

Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will.

Nothing happens by itself… it all will come your way, once you understand that you have to make it come your way, by your own exertions.

I agree that there are some bad apples on Wall Street. I spent about ten years exposing corporate and financial fraud for ‘Barron’s’ magazine and I found a lot to write about.

Somewhere there is a map of how it can be done.

It isn’t the rich people’s fault that poor people are poor. Poor people who get an education and work hard in this country will stop being poor. That should be the goal for all poor people everywhere.

Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place. Science leads you to killing people.

My dear, did you just try to prove the existence of God with your cleavage?

Try to live in a place you like.

I’m trying to become a young CEO, to brand myself in television and movies.

You know, you try to be diverse, and try to have fun and round things out.

I’ve been trying to make records and I describe it almost like a “movie for your ears” where it’s a little unconventional in its shape and form, but there’s something that’s intriguing in keeping you wanting to wait and see the next frame of film, except in here what’s coming around the corner for your ears.

We weren’t trying to walk him; he just wouldn’t swing at any bad pitches.

Pressure is working down the pit. Pressure is having no work at all. Pressure is trying to escape relegation on 50 shillings a week.

Love. Be curious. Always try to do your best.