It's nice to see a movie where people are actually succeeding.
Love of country follows from the exercise of its freedoms, not from pride in its fleets or its armies.
Leadership consists not in degrees of technique but in traits of character.
Talk about the flag or drugs or crime (never about race or class or justice) and follow the yellow brick road to the wonderful land of consensus. In place of honest argument among consenting adults the politicians substitute a lullaby for frightened children: the pretense that conflict doesn't really exist, that we have achieved the blessed state in which we no longer need politics.
A society that presumes a norm of violence and celebrates aggression, whether in the subway, on the football field, or in the conduct of its business, cannot help making celebrities of the people who would destroy it.
America is about class. To pretend that it isn't is very ignorant. No society has ever existed without some kind of a ruling class.
The mystical nature of American consumption accounts for its joylessness. We spend a great deal of time in stores, but if we don't seem to take much pleasure in our buying, it's because we're engaged in the acts of sacrifice and self-definition. Abashed in the presence of expensive merchandise, we recognize ourselves. . . as suppliants admitted to a shrine.
It’s not about you. The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness. It’s far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions. If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God. You were born by his purpose and for his purpose.
There are always two figures in a marriage, two votes, two conflicting sets of decisions, desires and limitations.
As far as kids go, at an early age they have to develop a sense of individuality. It's just something that everyone goes through. But I think the older I get, the more I appreciate the fact that we really are just so connected.
A vampire is a flexible metaphor. You know, death, sex, change, stagnation, loss of self, loss of agency, having to keep one's real self secret, the possibility of something lasting forever: love, hate, grief.