Youth is the opportunity to do something and to be somebody.
Wordiness is a sickness of American writing. Too many words dilute and blur ideas.
Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
Social improvement is attained more readily by a concern with the quality of results than with the purity of motives.
The most effective way to silence our guilty conscience is to convince ourselves and others that those we have sinned against are indeed depraved creatures, deserving every punishment, even extermination. We cannot pity those we have wronged, nor can we be indifferent toward them. We must hate and persecute them or else leave the door open to self-contempt.
The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.
It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt.
There was a wish to get something exceptional,. . . I also wanted to deliver something technically unique.
I should probably be afraid. But instead a hysterical laugh bubbles inside me, because I just remembered something: Maybe I can’t hold a gun. But I have a knife in my back pocket.
What you saw was the people of New York having a debate, talking through these issues. It was contentious; it was emotional; but, ultimately, they made a decision to recognize civil marriage. And I think that's exactly how things should work.
If life were a camera, I'd have the lens cap on.