Were Quotes

At the Sex Institute in Bloomington, Indiana, they were a phenomenal help, too. We went out there for a few days, and they gave us access to materials. And the biographies, there are four or five, ranging from very poor to excellent.

Well, I'm telling them two things. One is that, look, this is going to be something when the American people realize - once it's passed - that, A, it does take care of preexisting conditions; B, you're insurance rates aren't going to skyrocket; C, the insurance companies aren't going to be running the show like they were before; D, you're going to be in a position where you can keep your insurance that you have. That once the American public realizes that, you're going to get a reward for this. They're going to be rewarded.

Did you ever get the feeling that the world was a tuxedo and you were a pair of brown shoes?

I've always believed that there are funny people everywhere, but they're just not comedians. In fact, some of my best comedic inspirations were not professional entertainers.

In the late 1990s, some of the worst terrorist atrocities in the world were what the Turkish government itself called state terror, namely massive atrocities, 80 percent of the arms coming from the United States, millions of refugees, tens of thousands of people killed, hideous repression, that's international terror, and we can go on and on.

My personal view is always I'm in favour of anything that gives parliament a greater say. That's after all what we were elected for.

When I was 17, I worked in a mentoring program in Harlem designed to improve the community. That's when I first gained an appreciation of the Harlem Renaissance, a time when African-Americans rose to prominence in American culture. For the first time, they were taken seriously as artists, musicians, writers, athletes, and as political thinkers.

On the screen were some flashback shots of Daniel, Emma and Rupert from ten years ago. They were 12. I have also recently returned from New York, and while I was there, I saw Daniel singing and dancing (brilliantly) on Broadway. A lifetime seems to have passed in minutes.

What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

I am sorry to say that there is too much point to the wisecrack that life is extinct on other planets because their scientists were more advanced than ours.

You can't take back an act you were able to think.

I believe that if ever I had to practice cannibalism, I might manage if there were enough tarragon around.

My parents were working in a hospital in Memphis. But I didn't live there for any length of time that I remember. The first thing I remember is the town in Mississippi that I live in now, Charleston.

I grew up in a family that was multifaceted, sexually oriented, and pretty much open to everything. And because I was working, my friends were all adults. I had a tough time going to different schools because people knew me from films and I was the fat child who got beaten up every day.

If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told the nearest land was a thousand miles away, I'd still swim. And I'd despise the one who gave up.

My inner rock chick has always been there. I grew up listening to a lot of rock music through my sisters, who were teenagers while I was young, so they had control of the radio.

A picture is the expression of an impression. If the beautiful were not in us, how would we ever recognize it?

You have no idea how humiliating it was, as a boy, to suddenly have all your clothes, your toys, snatched by the bailiff. I mean we were a middle-class family, it's not as if it was happening up and down the street. It made me ashamed, I felt dirty.

No humorist is under any obligation to provide answers and probably if you were to delve into the literary history of humour it's probably all about not providing answers because the humorist essentially says: this is the way things are.

Words were not given to man in order to conceal his thoughts.

If more politicians in this country were thinking about the next generation instead of the next election, it might be better for the United States and the world.

During the decades after Brown v. Board of Education there was terrific progress. Tens of thousands of public schools were integrated racially. During that time the gap between black and white achievement narrowed.

It's not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewere, would much rather you weren't doing.

Governor Isaac Stevens of the Washington Territory said there were a great many white people in our country, and many more would come; that he wanted the land marked out so that the Indians and the white man could be separated.

None of us can boast about the morality of our ancestors. The record does not show that Adam and Eve were ever married.

If I were to say, "God, why me?" about the bad things, then I should have said, "God, why me?" about the good things that happened in my life.

I've always enjoyed acting. When we were younger, my sisters and I would put on plays for our parents.

I have found out in later years that we were very poor, but the glory of America is that we didn't know it then.

At Kansas City, Kansas, before the saloons were closed, they were getting ready to build an addition to the jail. Now the doors swing idly on the hinges and there is nobody to lock in the jails.

I've never canceled a subscription to a newspaper because of bad cartoons or editorials. If that were the case, I wouldn't have any newspapers or magazines to read.