Were Quotes

Artie travels all the time. The rehearsals were just miserable. Artie and I fought all the time. He didn't want to do the show with my band; he just wanted me on acoustic guitar.

What has been forgotten is that there were major intellectual breakthroughs in the 1960s, thanks to North American writers of an older generation. There was a rupture in continuity, since most young people influenced by those breakthroughs did not enter the professions.

My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition.

The truth is always something that is told, not something that is known. If there were no speaking or writing, there would be no truth about anything. There would only be what is.

Even with all the advantages of retrospect, and a lot of witnesses dead and gone, you can't make your life look as if you intended it or you were consistent. All you can show is how you dealt with various hands.

I landed a job with Roger Corman. The job was to write the English dialogue for a Russian science fiction picture. I didn't speak any Russian. He didn't care whether I could understand what they were saying; he wanted me to make up dialogue.

And if I were the president, I'd go out there and I'd emphasize the things I have done, and I'd say, 'Some things haven't worked, and I'm sorry about that, but I keep trying.' And I'm - and I think the president is a very viable candidate, and you're going to have a real horse race here no matter who the Republican nominee is.

The United States has made serious mistakes in the conduct of its foreign affairs, which have had unfortunate repercussions long after the decisions were taken.

If the choice were made, one for us to lose our sovereignty and become a member of the Commonwealth or remain with our sovereignty and lose the membership of the Commonwealth, I would say let the Commonwealth go.

I said that the only way I could have a band that would work in the format of my show is if the band were crap. So if I have a band they'd have to really suck.

When you are laboring for others let it be with the same zeal as if it were for yourself.

I cry, sometimes, because I'm not 20 years younger, and I'm not healthy. But if I were, I would even sacrifice my writing to enter politics.

I knew people were going to see me see deteriorate before their eyes.

If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.

My family, although they're very large on both my parents' sides, they don't know much about their family tree. Occasionally, they try to dig, but they can't get very far, and it's baffling. In Dublin, it seems that so many public records were wiped out; it's proven to be very difficult, so I know very little.

The people made worse off by slavery were those who were enslaved. Their descendants would have been worse off today if born in Africa instead of America. Put differently, the terrible fate of their ancestors benefitted them.

Growing up, my dolls were doctors and on secret missions. I had Barbie Goes Rambo.

Our pleasures were simple - they included survival.

I would not be a good mother. I mean, I love being an aunt to my niece and nephew. And I used to want to, like, adopt 10 kids - because I had friends who were adopted, and I thought that was the coolest thing, to be chosen. But again, my job is too selfish.

I think the way things have been left after Iraq is that people won't believe the Government of the day, so they have to know that lessons have been learnt and that all political parties and people, whether they were for or against the invasion of Iraq, have learnt lessons.

Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you.

I had a really wonderful upbringing. We were a tight family. It was wonderful to grow up with so many siblings. We were all just a year or two apart, and we were always so supportive of each other. I learned everything from my older brother and sister and taught it to my younger sisters.

I'm from a lower middle class background; all my family were immigrants.

During the Cold War, we were interested because we were scared that Russia and the United States were going to go to war. We were scared that Russia was going to take over the world. Every country became a battleground.

My mom and I were super tight. I think she really wanted me to be an artist, you know? She used to like to tell people she wanted to be Beethoven's mother. That was her thing. She wanted to be the mother of this person.

The framers of our Constitution meant we were to have freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

My parents both had Oxford degrees, they read important books, spoke foreign languages, drank real coffee and went to museums for pleasure. People like that don't have fat kids: they were cut out to be winners and winners don't have children who are overweight.

You never give away your heart; you lend it from time to time. If it were not so, how could we take it back without asking?

My dad was a homicide cop in the gay neighborhood in the city when gay neighborhoods were desperate, depressing, sad places run by the mob. The only gay people he'd met when I came out to him were corpses.

Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age.