"...we cannot stand idly by now, as the Nation is urged to embark on an ill-conceived adventure in government medicine, the end of which no one can see, and from which the patient is certain to be the ultimate sufferer."

“Aging will create the music of the coming century.”

“I am a very impatient director.”

“Most important, don't do anything you don't want.”

“The mythical America?that marvellous, heroic, sentimental landwas an object of faith. It challenged you to make the believer's leap over the rude facts at your feet.”

Source : 1990 HuntingMister Heartbreak, ch.2.

“In terms of the mechanics of story, myth is an intriguing one because we didn't make myth up; myth is an imprinture of the human condition.”

Source : Interview With Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. September 7, 2001.

“I probably do have an obsessive personality, but striving for perfection has served me well”

“I find that the great majority of public servants across the entire political spectrum come because they believe in the United States and they want to change the world.”

“Learning to explain phenomena such that one continues to be fascinated by the failure of one's explanations creates a continuing cycle of thinking, that is the crux of intelligence. It isn't that one person knows more than another, then. In as sense, it is important to know less than the next person, or at least to be certain of less, thus enabling more curiosity and less explaining away because one has again encountered a well-known phenomenon. The less you know the more you can find out about, and finding out for oneself is what intelligence is all about.”