most of our social and educational institutions are designed to weed out or make over people ... until we produce a world where everyone is a smart, quick-witted, aggressive person living on the surface of the mind without ever looking into the depths.

Habit is far stronger than the lessons of experience.

... law is a substitute for love.

Privacy is like sleep - something you don't appreciate until you have to go without it.

At twenty your choices are almost unlimited. At fifty you're a prisoner of past decisions. At seventy you have no free will left at all.

There's always trouble in the Middle East. I can't recall any time in my life when there hasn't been trouble there.

Diamonds are the tears of the poor.