“Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it’s from Neptune.”

In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued – they may be essential to survival.

Now that’s so deep in history that there’s no point even bringing it up, but it did once exist.

Libertarian socialism is properly to be regarded as the inheritor of the liberal ideals of the Enlightenment.

NATO was constructed on the – with the reason, whether one believes it or not, that it was going to defend Western Europe from Russian assault.

The polls show that concern over inequality among the general public rose pretty sharply after the Occupy movement started, very probably as a consequence. And there are other policy issues that came to the fore, which are significant.

It’s a trap for the rest of your life because the laws are designed so that you can’t get out of it. If a business, say, gets in too much debt, it can declare bankruptcy, but individuals can almost never be relieved of student debt through bankruptcy.

If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.

The Bible is one of the most genocidal books in history.

I don’t join the New Atheists. So, for example, I wouldn’t have the arrogance to lecture some mother who hopes to see her dying child in Heaven – that’s none of my business, ultimately. I won’t lecture her on the philosophy of science.

A war with Pakistan would be an utter disaster.

Remember, weapons of mass destruction don’t mean missiles.

If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion.

In America, the professor talks to the mechanic. They are in the same category.

Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever.

If there was an observer on Mars, they would probably be amazed that we have survived this long.

Immediately, the United States and Israel set about separating the two and making sure that they would not be united.

True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.

Conversation, like certain portions of the anatomy, always runs more smoothly when lubricated.

Don’t knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn’t start a conversation if it didn’t change once in a while.

Be politically correct, but please don’t bother other people with conversation about being politically correct, because that’s the end of everything. You want to create boredom? Be politically correct in your conversation.

Someone asked if I wanted to be the first female Bond, and I was saying that I don’t think we necessarily need that whole conversation.

As a child I wanted to be a grown-up. I wanted to know everything – not that I like to talk about it. I hate intellectual conversation with intellectuals because I only care about my opinion.

It’s hilarious a lot of times. You have a conversation with someone, and he’s like, ‘You speak so well!’ I’m like, ‘What do you mean? Do you understand that’s an insult?

The very old certainly do not go back on lunch remains but they do bite back at old conversational topics.