Don't the people you're around shape the music, is that what you're saying? Everything does.
Science is a set of rules to keep us from telling lies to each other. All scientists really have is a reputation for telling the truth.
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.
Any book worth banning is a book worth reading.
At odd and unpredictable times, we cling in fright to the past.
The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing-to be clear. I have given up all thought of writing poetically or symbolically or experimentally, or in any of the other modes that might (if I were good enough) get me a Pulitzer prize. I would write merely clearly and in this way establish a warm relationship between myself and my readers, and the professional critics-Well, they can do whatever they wish.
You can't make everybody laugh. You gotta just do what you think is funny. Just be obstreperous to everybody.
Through Clinton and Monica, Clinton and Hillary, the scandal, the impeachment, Iraq, Bruce and Demi, Ellen and Anne, I have remained consistently and nauseatingly adorable. I have, in fact, been known to cause diabetes.
God wisely designed the human body so that we can neither pat our own backs nor kick ourselves too easily.
I'm totally on a mission to find my signature scent, but I'm too mercurial.