The cliché organizes life; it expropriates people's identity; it becomes ruler, defense lawyer, judge, and the law.

The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense of humor, an ability to see things in their ridiculous and absurd dimensions, to laugh at others and at ourselves, a sense of irony regarding everything that calls out for parody in this world. In other words, I can only recommend perspective and distance.

To serve grand ideas with a major work is not bad, nor is it all there's to art.

Education is the ability to perceive the hidden connections between phenomena.

Genuine politics -- even politics worthy of the name -- the only politics I am willing to devote myself to -- is simply a matter of serving those around us: serving the community and serving those who will come after us. Its deepest roots are moral because it is a responsibility expressed through action, to and for the whole.

The cliché organizes life; it expropriates people's identity; it becomes ruler, defense lawyer, judge, and the law.

People who live in the post-totalitarian system know only too well that the question of whether one or several political parties are in power, and how these parties define and label themselves, is of far less importance than the question of whether or not it is possible to live like a human being.