It is the business of man to become acquainted with the material universe in all of its manifestations, so far as may be possible, in order to provide a foundation of knowledge on which the reasoning mind of man may increasingly build.

It can be difficult to speak truth to power. Circumstances, however, have made doing so increasingly necessary.

All things remarkable are surprisingly simple; albeit difficult to find.

We live in a world where unfortunately the distinction between true and false appears to become increasingly blurred by manipulation of facts, by exploitation of uncritical minds, and by the pollution of the language.

"For me the real evil of masturbation would be that it takes an appetite which, in lawful use, leads the individual out of himself to complete (and correct) his own personality in that of another (and finally in children and even grandchildren) and turns it back: sends the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides. And this harem, once admitted, works against his ever getting out and really uniting with a real woman. For the harem is always accessible, always subservient, calls for no sacrifices or adjustments, and can be endowed with erotic and psychological attractions which no real woman can rival. Among those shadowy brides he is always adored, always the perfect lover: no demand is made on his unselfishness, no mortification ever imposed on his vanity. In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself . . . . And it is not only the faculty of love which is thus sterilized, forced back on itself, but also the faculty of imagination.

I am increasingly strengthened in my belief in God for the simple reason that I've repeatedly witnessed the depravity of men.

After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked-as I am surprisingly often-why I bother to get up in the mornings.

Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.

I feel increasingly like age is very irrelevant. Quite often cynicism is confused with wisdom and my scorn is confused with a knowing which I don't have.

Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.

My interactions with Sorkin were agonisingly weird. He is by far the weirdest person I have ever met. I had dinner with him and a few hours before I got an e-mail from his assistant saying 'Sean this does not need to be a long conversation. Aaron is only going to use it to win your trust.'

Young poets bewail the passing of love old poets the passing of time. There is surprisingly little difference.

I think that technology has both introduced new sounds but also allowed an increasingly painterly approach to recording music as you can now paint over what you've done and more and more refine an existing performance.

The teacher of history's work should be ideally not simply a description of past cultures but a performance of the culture in which we live and are increasingly taking our being.

From this process has emerged a parallel process of translating traditional working and living values into a new political and economic power - a power increasingly based upon the strength of money and those material things money can purchase.

The families of many athletes - incensed at the sports leagues and hoping to make games safer overall - are increasingly making the brains of players who die prematurely and suspiciously available for study. Some athletes are even making the bequest themselves.

Sports have become increasingly more specialized but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be fun.

Australia has an increasingly multicultural society.

Intuition becomes increasingly valuable in the new information society precisely because there is so much data.

We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork.

I love romantic comedies. I like to watch them and I like to be in them. It's something that's increasingly difficult to find that spark of originality that makes if different than the ones that come before.

I've always had great respect for Paddington because he is amusingly English and eccentric. He is a great British institution and my generation grew up with the books and then Michael Horden's animations.

I found it interesting that as people become more technically oriented all over the world at the same time people are becoming increasingly spiritual. The success of the Da Vinci code - even though it was a great yawn - also showed people's interest in religion.

I have increasingly over the years felt that religion today does our civilization more harm than good.