The man who can put himself in the place of other men, who can understand the workings of their minds, need never worry about what the future has in store for him.

When I moved from Armenia to L.A., I moved to North Kingsley Drive. That was my street, that's where I grew up and I saw everything there. I started skateboarding there. I witnessed homelessness, the poor, you know, I noticed gangs. I learned about friendship.

Likings arise when one has no earthly reason for liking - the most wildly improbable marriages and uncommon friendship.

I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world.

You become world famous, and you sit with kings and queens, and then your first job is just a job. You can't go back to living the way you did before because you've been taken out of one setting and shown the other. That becomes a struggle and makes you struggle.

I am fighting royalty. I have gypsy kings on both sides of the family.

Not brute force but only persuasion and faith are the kings of this world.

It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.

Countries with short workweeks consistently top gender' equality rankings. The central issue is achieving a more equitable distribution of work.

It wouldn't be fair to say that conservatives cherish property the way liberals cherish equality. But it would be fair to say that the takings clause is the conservatives' recipe for judicial activism just as they say liberals have misused the equal protection clause.

If you look at the history of other movements, whether Civil Rights or environmental rights, these are all decades-long undertakings.

Real shapes and real patterns are things you would observe in nature, like the marks on the back of a cobra's hood or the markings on a fish or a lizard. Imaginary shapes are just that, symbols that come to a person in dreams or reveries and are charged with meaning.

That is the great mistake about the affections. It is not the rise and fall of empires, the birth and death of kings, or the marching of armies that move them most. When they answer from their depths, it is to the domestic joys and tragedies of life.

You have only to see what became of my father's will immediately after his death, and the wills of so many other kings. I know it well; but nevertheless, they have wished it; they gave me no rest nor repose, no calm until it was done.

Pale death, with impartial step, knocks at the hut of the poor and the towers of kings.

Death comes for us all. Even for kings he comes.

The glories of our blood and state, Are shadows, not substantial things; There is no armour against fate, Death lays his icy hand on kings. Scepter and crown must tumble down, And, in the dust, be equal made With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

Pale Death beats equally at the poor man's gate and at the palaces of kings.

I was supposed to be working on 'The Weekenders,' but I was blocked. I got this crazy idea that I would make Christmas stockings out of blankets.

We only open a couple of presents on Christmas morning; we're all about the stockings - we even get them for the dogs!

Sometimes I wonder: What are the children thinking? And sometimes I wonder why the hell I'm not buying a tree like the other neighbors. After all, there is no mention in Christianity of Christmas trees, and even if there were - is there any good reason why I shouldn't be buying some red stockings?

We used to indulge hopelessly as a family at Christmas. When the children were little, I dressed up as Father Christmas. They knew it was a gag, but they loved it. I remember stealing into their bedrooms at 1 A.M. and filling the stockings up at the end of the bed.

He put a ring in the toe of a stocking. On Christmas Eve, we opened our stockings and it was there at the bottom of the toe. Then he got down on his knees and he was shaking.

When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?