Most of us, like the assembly line worker, have jobs that are too small for our spirit. Jobs are not big enough for people.

No matter what the issues are, it has to be handled at the grassroots. When you take part in something, even though that movement may lose, the juices start flowing and you feel you count. You count. Well, that's pretty important.

Never go to bed with someone whose problems are greater than yours.

I have a big mouth, and I never met a petition I didn't like, so of course in the McCarthy days I got in trouble.

One day I visited a guy who had made a fortune as a broker. He was sitting in his office with his computer. I hire people from here and make deals from this room, he told me. Then he took me to the trading room. Nobody was talking to anybody else, the place was silent as a tomb, they were all sitting there watching their terminals - a great word, terminal. I tell you, it scares the crap out of me.

You know, 'power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely'? It's the same with powerlessness. Absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely. Einstein said everything had changed since the atom was split, except the way we think. We have to think anew.

But once you become active in something, something happens to you. You get excited and suddenly you realize you count.