I used to wish there was a useful term for those of us who thought American power should be used to remove psychopathic dictators.

The trade-off between freedom and security, so often proposed so seductively, very often leads to the loss of both.

I think the socialist movement, by removing many, many people from grinding stagnation and poverty and overwork, does enable people not just to lead better lives but to be better people.

It is only those who hope to transform human beings who end up by burning them, like the waste product of a failed experiment.

The diet book is one of those fool-and-money separation devices that seems, like roulette or slot machines, never to lose its power.

[Concerning monotheistic religions] The only thing these hysterical cults have in common is the belief that this world will be consumed, and deservedly so, when the moment is ripe. They also, all of them, profess a great disdain for earthly possessions. Yet they pass the intervening time in haggling over the most trivial and paltry property rights, over caves and rocks and disputable pieces of archeological rubbish.

It’s considered perfectly normal in this society to approach dying people who you don’t know but who are unbelievers and say, ‘Now are you gonna change your mind?’ That is considered almost a polite question.