"I believe that its most important function is in the formation of attachment. If we did not suffer enough loss to fear it, we could not love intensely."

"The French are just useless. They can't organize a piss-up in a brewery."

"If fear alters behavior, you're already defeated."

"This nation will never go back to the false comforts of the world before 911. We are engaging the enemy as we must, in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, so we will not have to face them here at home."

"Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything."

"The important is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn."

"It is not the greatness of a man's means that makes him independent, so much as the smallness of his wants."

"Noncooks think it's silly to invest two hours' work in two minutes' enjoyment; but if cooking is evanescent, so is the ballet."

"Those who do not know how to weep with their whole heart don't know how to laugh either."

"We have placed too much hope in political and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life."

"No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true."

"The best leader is the one who has the sense to surround himself with outstanding people and self-restraint not to meddle with how they do their jobs."