To write is a relief from life's problems. It is a way in which you revenge yourself. In art, the writer achieves utopia. But any attempt to achieve social utopia is bound to catastrophe. If you want a society of saints, the result is hell, repression, totalitarianism, and persecution.

My three years in politics was very instructive about the way in which the appetite for political power can destroy a human mind, destroy principles and values, and transform people into little monsters.

Good literature always ends up showing those who read it... the inevitable limitation of all power to fulfill human aspirations and desires.

Reality is the richest thing there is, the most important thing there is. Our imagination allows us to live an artificial life that is wonderful, extremely rich, but I don't believe any artist would dare to say that artifice is better than real life.

The only real failure is giving up.

As a music industry, if we remain in competition, then we die. We have to understand that we're all in this together. Collaboration and synergy, it's one of the most important things out there.

I never see failure as failure, but only as the game I must play and win.

You are your greatest asset. Put your time, effort and money into training, grooming, and encouraging your greatest asset.

Getting in touch with your true self must be your first priority.

Repeat anything often enough and it will start to become you.

The failure of national economic policy is costing us more than jobs; it has begun to weaken that uniquely American spirit of risk-taking, large ambition, and optimism about the future. We must rally them now to bold departures that rebuild our national morale as well as our material prosperity.

If our nation goes over a financial Niagara, we won't have much strength and, eventually, we won't have peace. We are currently borrowing the entire defense budget from foreign investors. Within a few years, we will be spending more on interest payments than on national security. That is not, as our military friends say, a 'robust strategy.'

All great enterprises have a pearl of faith at their core, and this must be ours: that Americans are still a people born to liberty. That they retain the capacity for self-government. That, addressed as free-born, autonomous men and women of God-given dignity, they will rise yet again to drive back a mortal enemy.

The public is increasingly disgusted with a steady diet of defamation, and prepared to reward those who refrain from it.

At least I have the modesty to admit that lack of modesty is one of my failings.

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.

Love cannot express the idea of music, while music may give an idea of love.

I have probably purchased fifty 'hot tips' in my career, maybe even more. When I put them all together, I know I am a net loser.

Always, when I do a play, there's got to be an equation of risks and potential failure. When you're working on a new play, it's like, 'How the hell do I do this, and do we have the time?' All of these huge questions engage, hopefully, the smartest part of me. And then when you're doing a revival, I went, 'Well, somebody's already solved it.'

Surviving failure is one thing. Surviving success is... is challenging, with the consequences and what you lose along the way.

There is a real affection for these human beings on these stage that O'Neill really had. Out of that affection comes a lot of humor, which is unexpected when you think of 'The Iceman Cometh.'

The younger me was motivated by a need to please others, by the pressure to climb the corporate ladder and make money, and by a fear of failure - all of which became more and more intense as I navigated the competitive landscape.

Science fiction is not quirky anymore; we live in a futuristic world now.

I'm very lucky that my husband is a true partner in child-rearing. If I get home late, he gets home early or vice-versa. I travel more, and he's able to spell me when I'm gone.

There's so much interest and curiosity about alien life, interstellar travel. It's always in the news.

Hope is a key ingredient in what drives creativity - the hope of bringing to life what exists in the imagination, of transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary - so it's completely logical that Hollywood is the entertainment capital of the world. It's full of people bursting with the desire to make the world laugh, cry, think.

The consequence of the Bay of Pigs failure wasn't an acceptance of Castro and his control of Cuba but, rather, a renewed determination to bring him down by stealth.

Don't be intimidated by people who seem to be experts. Hear their points of view and get their judgements. But at the end of day, you've got to make a judgement because it's not their life that's going to be affected so much as your future.

Whatever the long-term legal prospects for same-sex marriage, President Obama's willingness to put the matter front and center in an election year can at least make him a candidate for inclusion in Kennedy's Profiles in Courage.

John Kennedy had so many different medical problems that began when he was a boy. He started out with intestinal problems... spastic colitis.

Concealing one's true medical condition from the voting public is a time-honored tradition of the American presidency.

In 1800, in the first interparty contest, the Federalists warned that presidential candidate Thomas Jefferson, because of his sympathy expressed at the outset of the French Revolution, was 'the son of a half-breed Indian squaw' who would put opponents under the guillotine.

Washington, D.C. is what is broken, not the immigration policies. We have good laws. We have people suffer every day because of government's failure to enforce the law and be respectful to the process we have. We have a pathway to citizenship already in place.

I mean, that's a sad day in America when you're recalled because you did what you said you were going to do, and the public voted you in to do that.

All war represents a failure of diplomacy.

I think if you're going to be committed to doing anything, you really have to care about it, and I suppose that is a romantic idea.

I see myself as an old man and an unqualified teacher to the nation. I think being a teacher is probably the most important thing you can be in politics.

I'm fully aware that things that resonate and become real hits are the exception to the rule, so much so that I've wired myself for failure.

I'm thankful to be breathing, on this side of the grass. Whatever comes, comes.

Every time you get on a stage or in front of a camera, the whole exercise is about imagination. You're constantly depicting something that doesn't exist, and trying to find the reality of it. Once you settle on that premise, everything else is a matter of degrees.

After Mitt Romney's defeat, the RNC released its official assessment of what happened - a failure to reach younger voters, nonwhite voters, women - but was met with a counter-narrative that, in fact, it was Romney's failure to be conservative enough that led to a depressed Republican base.

Boosting STEM education opportunities for young women globally is one critical way that the U.S. can promote women's equality, as well as economic development, around the world.

Millennials easily connect the dots between good education and good opportunities, and they also understand that it isn't just hard work that determines how well a child will be educated - it also depends on where they live and the resources their parents commit to their education.

Not long ago, women in Afghanistan were required by Taliban leadership to be covered nearly head-to-toe and were barely allowed to leave the home; that young Afghan women today are not only accessing an education but are able to meet young people from around the world and cheer on a robot of their own making is something beautiful.

My dad is an electrical engineer. So he was always very focused on, you know, teaching his daughters about, you know, science, math, technology. None of us actually became engineers for our careers, but I always had that exposure when I was young, and I just loved playing computer games.

I had a history teacher who taught us a lot about the Cold War. You had these examples of countries where the government had tried to manage the economy really intensely, and it ended up being bad for the citizens there. I found myself beginning to lean more right on economic issues.

The way most people fail is in not keeping up the heart.

It was among farmers and potato diggers and old men in workhouses and beggars at my own door that I found what was beyond these and yet farther beyond that drawingroom poet of my childhood in the expression of love, and grief, and the pain of parting, that are the disclosure of the individual soul.

I've always had a love of cards, ever since I was a little kid. I think poker, as a system, describes the chaos of the world. Our sudden reversals, our freak streaks of fortune. The belief that the next hand can save you, and the inevitable failure of the next hand to save you. I think that describes my world view pretty well.

The contemporary casino is more than a gambling destination: it is a multifarious pleasure enclosure intended to satisfy every member of the family unit.