I don't want you to describe to me—not ever—what you were doing to that poor boy to make him sound like that; but if you ever do it again, please cover his mouth with your hand.

We permit bad taste in this country. In fact, we even encourage it - and reward it in all manner of ways.

I will tell you what is my overriding perception of the last twenty years: that we are a civilization careening toward a succession of anticlimaxes – toward an infinity of unsatisfying, and disagreeable endings.

...every study of the gods, of everyone's gods, is a revelation of vengeance towards the innocent.

When you legislate personal belief, you're in violation of freedom of religion.

I have learned that the consequences of our past actions are always interesting; I have learned to view the present with a forward-looking eye.

It's a no-win argument - that business of what we're born with and what our environment does to us. And it's a boring argument, because it simplifies the mysteries that attend both our birth and our growth.