“As for civil liberties, any one who is not vigilant may one day find himself living, if not in a police state, at least in a police city.”

We’re not a democracy.

The unfed mind devours itself.

From April 1775 to July 1776, the undeclared war between England and its American colonies smoldered, flared up, appeared to sputter out… It was hardly, ever, a mass rebellion.

Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die.

Why not just eliminate the federal income tax?

I don’t even read most reviews, unless there is a potential lawsuit on view.

Since we have literally targeted our enemies, the Pentagon assumes that, sooner or later, rogues will take out our cities, presumably from spaceships.

I’m not paranoid, no. I’m different in that I have enemies. Very real ones.

Write something, even if it’s just a suicide note.

Some of my father’s fellow West Pointers once asked him why I turned out so well, his secret in raising me. And he said, ‘I never gave him any advice, and he never asked for any.’ We agreed on nothing, but we never quarreled once.

A friend was surprised to hear me say that there was not one moment of my past that I would like to relive.

Actually, I can’t remember when I was not writing.

Until very recently, the artist was a magician who did his magic in public view but kept himself and his effects a matter of mystery.

After adolescence, if one’s life is sufficiently interesting, the desire to tell oneself stories diminishes.

Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.

Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.

Atheists have just as much civil right to teach atheism as Christians have to teach Christianity; agnostics have just as much right to teach agnosticism as Christians have to teach their religion.

What’s so civil about war anyway?

Civil disobedience has an honourable history, and when the urgency and moral clarity cross a certain threshold, then I think that civil disobedience is quite understandable, and it has a role to play.

We’ve talked more about civil rights after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than we talked about it before 1964.

We have to put a stop to the idea that it is a part of everybody’s civil rights to say whatever he pleases.

There’s a crying need for civility across the board. We need to and will come together in the name of Jesus.

The taxpayer – that’s someone who works for the federal government but doesn’t have to take the civil service examination.

We ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States, be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever.