Say there's a white kid who lives in a nice home goes to an all-white school and is pretty much having everything handed to him on a platter - for him to pick up a rap tape is incredible to me because what that's saying is that he's living a fantasy life of rebellion.

I have not been that wise. Health I have taken for granted. Love I have demanded perhaps too much and too often. As for money I have only realized its true worth when I didn't have it.

Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.

O that unbelievers would learn of faithful Abraham and believe whatever is revealed from God though they cannot fully comprehend it! Abraham knew God commanded him to offer up his son and therefore believed notwithstanding carnal reasoning might suggest may objections.

I wished to God the doctor had handed me a pamphlet that said 'Hey sorry about the autism but here's a step-by-step list on what to do next.' But doctors don't do that. They say 'sorry' and move you along.

I am involved in a freedom ride protesting the loss of the minority rights belonging to the few remaining earthbound stars. All we demanded was our right to twinkle.

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for protected and handed on for them to do the same.

On the Day of Atonement Jews are commanded to seek forgiveness from the people we have hurt.

I fear my enthusiasm flags when real work is demanded of me.

I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.

For-profit higher education is today a booming industry feeding on the student loans handed out to the desperate.

Abraham Lincoln comes from nothing has no education no money lives in the middle of nowhere on the frontier. And despite the fact that he suffers one tragedy and one setback after another through sheer force of will he becomes something extraordinary: not only the president but the person who almost single-handedly united the country.

Dreams have always expanded our understanding of reality by challenging our boundaries of the real of the possible.

Meyer and I have a bit in common because we're both left-handed. I think it's great that he seeks out that advice because he's not too cool or too uncomfortable to ask for it.

Because I believe that humans are computers I conjectured that computers like people can have left- and right-handed versions.

I was born left-handed but I was made to use my other hand. When I was writing 'Famished Road ' which was very long I got repetitive stress syndrome. My right wrist collapsed so I started using my left hand. The prose I wrote with my left hand came out denser so later on I had to change it.

Imagine if the pension funds and endowments that own much of the equity in our financial services companies demanded that those companies revisit the way mortgages were marketed to those without adequate skills to understand the products they were being sold. Management would have to change the way things were done.

We like to think about how smart we are. But I think talent as a writer is hard-wired in it's all there at least the basic elements of it. You can't change it any more than you can choose whether to be right handed or left handed.

But I think talent as a writer is hard-wired in it's all there at least the basic elements of it. You can't change it any more than you can choose whether to be right handed or left handed.

I want to tell my jokes. I want to have time with my children. I want to entertain people. And at one point I'll walk away from show business. But I don't want to walk away empty-handed.

I looked on child rearing not only as a work of love and duty but as a profession that was fully as interesting and challenging as any honorable profession in the world and one that demanded the best that I could bring to it.

Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best.

Beauty unlike the rest of the gifts handed out at birth does not require dedication patience and hard work to pay off. But it's also the only gift that does not keep on giving.