“We have to face the unpleasant as well as the affirmative side of the human story, including our own story as a nation, our own stories of our peoples.”

Having lost faith in all else, zealots have nothing left but a holy cause to please a warrior God. They win if we become holy warriors, too; if we kill the innocent as they do; strike first at those who had not struck us.

Our economy is a plantation run for the aristocrats – the CEOs, hedge funds, private equity firms – while the field hands are left with the scraps.

As a student I learned from wonderful teachers and ever since then I’ve thought everyone is a teacher.

Barack Obama strikes me as a man of strong principles and weak convictions – the kind of guy who would rather teach constitutional law than practice it, or who’d rather watch the match alone on TV than arm-wrestle his opponents.

Unless you’re willing to fight and refight the same battles until you go blue in the face, drive the people you work with nuts going over every detail to make certain you’ve got it right, and then take hit after unfair hit accusing you of bias, there’s no use even trying.

Conservatism is less a set of ideas than it is a pathological distemper, a militant anger over the fact that the universe is not closed and life is not static.

Jon Stewart is a remarkable satirist and parodist in the vein of Mark Twain, because Jon Stewart understands what Mark Twain knew, which is that the truth goes down more easily in a democracy when it’s marinated in humor.

Television is a medium. It is neither rare nor well done.

Charity depends on the vicissitudes of whim and personal wealth; justice depends on commitment instead of circumstance. Faith-based charity provides crumbs from the table; faith-based justice offers a place at the table.

War, except in self-defense, is a failure of moral imagination.

When a library is open, no matter its size or shape, democracy is open, too.

For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.

Watching the debate this afternoon it was apparent they loved term limits in the House – as Brutus loved Caesar.

Standing up to your government can mean standing up for your country.

I’ll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one

I can tell you that the job of trying to tell the truth about people whose job it is to hide the truth is about as complicated and difficult as trying to hide it in the first place.

You’ve got to ensure that the holders of an opinion, however unpopular, are allowed to put across their points of view.

Forget what others whisper in your ears. Most of that is pure rubbish that obstructs the view to what really is important. Always make your own decisions. That is what makes us human.

In view of this and other things, I demand forgiveness for being so obviously impressed with my own parents.

For strictly scientific or technological purposes all this is irrelevant. On a pragmatic view, as on a religious view, theory and concepts are held in faith.

Art and science work in quite different ways: agreed. But, bad as it may sound, I have to admit that I cannot get along as an artist without the use of one or two sciences. …

From the Taoist point of view, the natural result of this harmonious way of living is happiness.

I feel that TV and film feed off each other well. It’s more in the perception of the viewer than it is of the actor.

Your views are as narrow as your tie.