"Cut the umbilical cord to yesterday. Although we can't change history, we change the effect the past has on the future."

“Silence is sometimes the best answer”

“Within evangelicalism is a distressing drift toward accepting a Christianity that does not demand a life-changing walk with God. Many evangelicals (today) do not realize that the church has always been an island of righteousness in a sea of paganism, but as a result they turned the world upside-down.”

“It's not good for government to tell people that the world owes them a living and that things are free.”

“I believe our task is to develop a moral and aesthetic imagination deep enough and wide enough to encompass the contradictions of our time and history, the tremendous loss and tragedy as well as greatness and nobility, an imagination capable of recognizing that where there is light there is shadow, that out of hubris and fall can come moral regeneration, out of suffering and death, resurrection and rebirth.”

“If the English language had been properly organized ... then there would be a word which meant both 'he' and 'she', and I could write, 'If John or Mary comes heesh will want to play tennis', which would save a lot of trouble.”

“The traditional role of the Senate has been to be the adult in the room.”

“I have reached the end of my time, and have hardly come to the beginning of my task.”

“We're not like pop musicians who have to perform the same top ten tunes every night of a tour.”