Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.

Amazing fine tuning occurs in the laws that make this [complexity] possible. Realization of the complexity of what is accomplished makes it very difficult not to use the word 'miraculous' without taking a stand as to the ontological status of the word.

It's a tragedy that a lot of people know more about Shakespeare than about Cao Xueqin.

[About Christian Groups] They have no rights to call themselves "Christians", because they have no Christianity to them; they have no kindness, no compassion, no charity. I want Jesus to come back and say: "THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT!

I felt like I wasn’t going to make it,” she said. “When I thought about my life in front of me, how I’m going to rise up to anything … it was so overwhelming.”

[On joining the Radical Party] I joined not so much out of organic membership, but in response to a plea from the Radical Party, which was struggling to survive. I did it out of gratitude. I didn't vote for them; I was a socialist. I did it so that a party that had brought divorce and abortion to Italians wouldn't die.

The outstanding work that he has done over the past 35 years on child labour and trafficking has helped change mindsets and influence communities to protect children’s rights and create a more just society.

He had an amazing charisma, was so passionate about what he did, and the people could feel it.

Strategy is about stretching limited resources to fit ambitious aspirations.

The fate of the Jewish people is the fate of Macbeth who stepped out of nature itself, clung to alien beings, and so in their service had to trample and slay everything holy in human nature.

Be immeasurably great, be unfathomably deep; make certain that names and results tally, examine laws and customs, punish those who act willfully, and the state will be without traitors.

In a jungle town
Where the sun beats down
To the rage of man and beast,
The English garb
Of the English sahib
Merely gets a bit more creased.
In Bangkok
At twelve'o'clock
They foam at the mouth and run,
But mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun.

Those men are good who study the good of others without regarding themselves. Those men are ordinary men who, while they benefit others, do not neglect their own interests. Those men are demons who destroy another's good for their own profit. What shall we call those who aimlessly destroy that which is another's?

The second person to write a story about a young boy and an escaped slave on the Mississippi wasn't a novelist, he was a typist.

Audrey was meek, gentle and ethereal, understated both in her life and in her work. She walked among us with a light pace, as if she didn't want to be noticed. [I regret losing her] as a friend, as a role model, and as a companion to my youthful dreams.

The Year: 1980. The Scene: Outer Space. The Story: The Destruction of Earth!