A leader leads from in front, by the power of example. A ruler pushes from behind, by means of the club, the whip, the power of fear.

By the age of eighteen, a human has acquired enough joy and heartache to provide the food of reflection for a century.

There are only two kinds of books -- good books and the others. The good are winnowed from the bad through the democracy of time.

Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best.

In the first place you can't see anything from a car; you've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk, better yet crawl, on hands and knees, over the sandstone and through the thornbush and cactus. When traces of blood begin to mark your trail you'll begin to see something, maybe. Probably not.

My own ambition, my deepest and truest ambition, is to find within myself someday, somehow, the ability to do likewise, to do NOTHING - and find it enough.

Government should be weak, amateurish and ridiculous. At present, it fulfills only a third of the role.