"It is fatal to look hungry. It makes people want to kick you."

“Mr. Jamrach led me through the lobby and into the menagerie. The first was a parrot room, a fearsome screaming place of mad round eyes, crimson breasts that beat against bars, wings that flapped against their neighbours, blood red, royal blue, gypsy yellow, grass green. The birds were crammed along perches. Macaws hung upside down here and there, batting their white eyes, and small green parrots flittered above our heads in drifts. A hot of cockatoos looked down from on high over the shrill madness, high crested, creamy breasted. The screeching was like laughter in hell.”

“You know that you are a teacher when you spend more money on school stuff than you do on your own children.”

“Without garlic I simply would not care to live.”

“Works of art should be stimulating. They should wake people up rather than acting like a sedative.”

“Hot yoga is the best. When you're in [class], there are no cell phones, no talking, no distractions. You're taking a leave from reality for an hour or so.”

“Oh, you're one of the sodomites. You should only get AIDS and die, you pig. How's that? Why don't you see if you can sue me, you pig. You got nothing better than to put me down, you piece of garbage. You have got nothing to do today, You have got nothing to do today, go eat a sausage and choke on it.”

Source : Interview with Bill Moyers, www.pbs.org. July 24, 2009.

“We're a country that abhors the government. From Reagan on, many people think the government is the enemy in the United States.”

Source : "Oliver Stone on War, George Bush, Ken Burns, and His New Show". Interview with June Thomas, www.slate.com. November 14, 2012.

“Study and discipline are the prerequisite to any form of accomplishment. Unfortunately however, studying is much like paying taxes for most of us - we only do it when we have to. If you're serious about developing greatness in your life, study the lives of great men and women and follow their advice!”