Girls have an unfair advantage over men: if they can't get what they want by being smart, they can get it by being dumb.
[I wanted] to play the clarinet well so I could be in Duke Ellington's band, but that's now impossible.
[My father] was very impressed when he saw "Death of a Salesman," I must say. He recognized himself to some extent.
Max Askeli was a very courageous, principled man up to a point. He had left Italy before he was thrown in jail by [Francesco] Mussolini.
Margot [Hentoff] dislikes Bill Clinton because he's totally untrustworthy, and you really ought to have some faith in whoever's going to be your president.
I was very much against the Vietnam War, and Max Askeli was visiting Lyndon Johnson in the White House cheering him on, writing editorials. And in The Voice one day I once referred to him as Commander Askeli. And I called in to The Reporter to go over the galleys of a music piece I had written, and the editor whispered to me, `It's not gonna run. You're not gonna run. Max Askeli has fired you because of what you said about him. '
A woman in the audience asked [Barack] Obama about her mother. Her mother was 101 years old and was in need of a certain kind of procedure. Her doctor didn't want to do it because of her age. However, another doctor did and told this woman there is a joy of life in this person. The woman asked President Obama how he would deal with this sort of thing, and Obama said we cannot consider the joy of life in this situation. He said I would advise her to take a pain killer. That is the essence of the President of the United States.
. . . it matters not what natural endowment a race may have if it prostitutes itself to the service of death.
O heart, be at peace, because Nor knave nor dolt can break What's not for their applause, Being for a woman's sake.
I’ve spent something like 17 years working on a theory for which there is essentially no direct experimental support.
A tribulation gives you the opportunity to test a truth you have always believed.