"I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will."
"It is not titles that honour men, but men that honour titles."
"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations."
"It’s a great place to grow up [Los Angeles] as a creator because there’s no intellectual hierarchy. I remember going to a party in New York about 35 years ago. They all called me Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. I said, “You, ma’am, your name and phone number? And you, sir, your phone number? And you, sir?” And they said, “Why are you taking our phone numbers?” I said, “Because the night we land on the moon, you’re going to get called.” I was in London when we did. I called three of them, and when they answered I said, “Stupid son of a bitch,” and hung up."
"Art is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it."
"One change always leaves the way open for the establishment of others."
"It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles."
"For Marx, socialism is the point where we begin collectively to determine our own destinies. It is democracy taken with full seriousness, rather than democracy as a political charade."
"Men do you harm either because they fear you or because they hate you."
—The Prince (Machiavelli)
"In the Social Democratic Party [Trotsky] was the theoretician of the permanent revolution, which means a revolution which cannot and will not be extinguished before it has completed its work, and which consequently can be conceived only on an international plane."
"It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness."
"The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous."
—Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince (1532)
"Good morning, Pooh Bear,” said Eeyore gloomily. “If it is a good morning,” he said. “Which I doubt,” said he."
