One of the greatest joys of doing 'Comic Book Men' - I was so thankful - was that my wife Carol was able to appear with me. Being able to share that experience with Carol was such a monumental joy for me.

It is a sad commentary that today we face a choice between having schools that are a monument to our past - or schools that will be the lifeblood of our future. But since that is our choice, let us resolve to choose wisely.

Who could look on these monuments without reflecting on the vanity of mortals in thus offering up testimonials of their respect for persons of whose very names posterity is ignorant?

But every great scripture, whether Hebrew, Indian, Persian, or Chinese, apart from its religious value will be found to have some rare and special beauty of its own; and in this respect the original Bible stands very high as a monument of sublime poetry and of artistic prose.

It could be that all awful dictators are frustrated artists - Mao with his poetry and Mussolini with his monuments. Stalin was once a journalistic hack, and I can personally testify to how frustrated they are. Pol Pot left a very edgy photo collection behind. And Osama seems quite interested in video.

I've done an awful lot of stuff that's a monument to public patience.

I always wish the hotels were like they are in movies and TV shows, where if you're in Paris, right outside your window is the Eiffel Tower. In Egypt, the pyramids are right there. In the movies, every hotel has a monument right outside your window. My hotel rooms overlook the garbage dumpster in the back alley.

There is none of that feeling about art that you meet everywhere in Europe. There you will hear people say, 'Oh, you must see such-and-such a statue at 4 o'clock in the afternoon; then the light is beautiful,' or, 'See this monument in the early morning; the light is best for it then.' Do you ever hear anything like that from an American?

I had a monumental idea this morning, but I didn't like it.

New York City is a great monument to the power of money and greed... a race for rent.

Stamps from Afghanistan are hilarious. You can tell when the revolutions are because suddenly they stop having pictures of the mullahs and the independence monument and they start having fish on them.

Never underestimate the ability of political leaders to misread history on a monumental scale. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have both served to hasten western decline: they have both failed to achieve their objectives and in the process demonstrated an underlying western impotence.

The risk of the Holocaust is not that it will be forgotten, but that it will be embalmed and surrounded by monuments and used to absolve all future sins.

My story is a freedom song from within my soul. It is a guide to discovery, a vision of how even the worst pain and heartaches can be channeled into human monuments, impenetrable and everlasting.

At last, in 1611, was made, under the auspices of King James, the famous King James version; and this is the great literary monument of the English language.

The Taj Mahal can be a tourist attraction, an architectural marvel, but it can never be treated as a monument of faith. After all, there is a difference between tourism and faith.

Education in India has made monumental progress since Independence but continues to face daunting challenges at multiple levels, particularly in terms of quality, infrastructure and dropout rates. We have islands of excellence floating in a sea of mediocrity.

Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants.

Jerry Goldsmith, I have to say, is my single favorite composer of all time. He was one of the most innovative guys ever to do it. You go back to 'Planet of the Apes' and it is just a monumental score - the sound design and approach to percussion was just so extraordinary. One of his great scores for me was 'Alien.'

The poets' scrolls will outlive the monuments of stone. Genius survives; all else is claimed by death.

My attitude is, a monument, a statue, ought to signify unity instead of division.

The things we do outlast our mortality. The things we do are like monuments that people build to honor heroes after they've died. They're like the pyramids that the Egyptians built to honor the pharaohs. Only instead of being made of stone, they're made out of the memories people have of you.

so here i sit. a sum of the parts. about a third way down this wonderful path, so to speak. and i've been thinking lately about a friendship that fell apart with time, with distance, and with the misunderstanding of youth. i'm trying not to confuse sadness with regret. not the easiest thing at times. i dont regret that certain things happened. i understand that perhaps i had a choice in the matter, or perhaps i believe in fate. probably not, but so far actions as small as the quickest glance to events as monumental as death have pushed me slowly along to right here, right now. there was no other way to get here. the meandering and erratic path was actually the straightest of lines. take away a handful of angry words, things once thought of as mistakes or regrets, and i'm suddenly a different person with a different history, a different future. that, i would regret. so here i sit. thinking about a person i once called my best friends. a man who might be full of sadness and regret, who might not give a damn, or who might, just might, remember the future and realize that's where its at.

I am too tired, I must try to rest and sleep, otherwise I am lost in every respect. What an effort to keep alive! Erecting a monument does not require an expenditure of so much strength.