Quotes

I spend my life writing fiction, so reading fiction isn't much of an escape. That's not always true, but I don't read much contemporary fiction.

If you read the history of the national Socialist party, they're all people who felt like life should have been better to them. They're disappointed, vengeful, angry.

I had the experience of a monk copying documents, applying myself assiduously to my work. And I thought whatever happened, happened - this is just what I do in my life.

I could not spend the rest of my life sitting in Brazil writing down who called whom uncle and aunt.

The 1960s were really a life-changing time.

I was a fairly good amateur musician, and I was an average professional. But the one thing I saw was that the big band business was fading. So I made an economic decision, and it turned out the best judgment I ever made in my life.

There's no other job in public life that is like chairman of the Fed.

In our quest to define and describe the world, we have crisscrossed the oceans and continents, compiling exhaustive knowledge about its life forms and features, and extended our physical reach through technology, which provides us instantaneous and pervasive access to information about seemingly everything.

Life feels more vivid in a conflict zone. It is clear what matters, and who you can count on, for what.

My undergraduate years at the University of Nebraska were a special time in my life: the combination of partying and intellectual awakening that is what the undergraduate years are supposed to be. I went to the university with the goal of becoming an engineer; I had no concept that one could pursue science as a career.

A country song is a song about life.

I'm usually just enjoying life.

I've had to live with women all my life. I grew up with four older sisters, and I was the baby and the only boy.

'After 17' is a song I wrote when my first daughter went to college, so that's kind of where I'm at in that part of my life. If you listen to that song and knew anything about me, you'd say, 'Oh yeah, he wrote that about his daughter,' but I try not to write them that they are so specific that they wouldn't apply to anybody that has a child.

Across the nation, there are thousands of individuals serving life or life-equivalent sentences for crimes they committed as children. This means they will likely die in prison without a chance to prove to society they are worthy of a second chance.

As a lifelong Republican who served in the Army in Germany, I believe it is critical that we review - and overturn - the ban on gay service in the military. I voted for 'don't ask, don't tell.' But much has changed since 1993. My thinking shifted when I read that the military was firing translators because they are gay.

Rather than serving in the U.S. Senate for almost 20 years or having so many other wonderful life experiences, I could have served a longer sentence in prison for some of the stupid, reckless things I did as a teenager.

One individual doesn't really accept the pro-life position of the party, and the other... says he supports it and takes a position that is logically inconsistent.

I can't stay friends with anyone who doesn't have a passion for something; and, generally speaking, artistic people, creative people carry it right into the kitchen, too. They have a zest for life; the excitement of living. All of the great eaters I've known are also men of great wit.

One thing I've never said in my whole life is, 'Let's have dinner at a Japanese restaurant.'

The world is full of little dictators trying to run your life.

Did you hear the one about the elderly Jew on his deathbed who sent for a priest, after declaring to his astonished relatives that 'I want to convert.' Asked why he would become a Catholic, after living all his life as a Jew, he answered: 'Better one of them should die than one of us.'

In every aspect of life, have a game plan, and then do your best to achieve it.

What good will a tax break do me if I'm crippled for life?

Maybe I can't act, but I know the gimmicks. I studied acting all my life and know what's good for me.