People asked me what I want as an epitaph: ‘He tried’
The values derived from religious belief will not – and should not – be accepted as part of the public morality unless they are shared by the pluralistic community at large, by consensus.
I told them that my grandfather had died in the Great Crash of 1929 – a stockbroker jumped out of a window and crushed him and his pushcart down below.
Most of us have achieved levels of affluence and comfort unthought of two generations ago. We’ve never had it so good, most of us. Nor have we ever complained so bitterly about our problems.
You will not be able to tell that they are capable of greatness until you provide them with a packed house, a 3-and-2 count and the game is on the line.
Decide exactly what you want to achieve. Do you want to help people, or do you want to be powerful?
I said I didn’t want to run for president. I didn’t ask you to believe me.
You want calamities? What about the Ice Age?
Outrage is easy, cheap, and oversold. The nation needs less anger and more thoughtful reflection, less shouting and more listening, less dissembling and more honesty.
Entertainers and sports figures achieve fame and wealth but find the world empty and dull without the solace and stimulation of drugs.
The mugger who is arrested is back on the street before the police officer, but the person mugged may not be back on the street for a long time, if ever.
People expect Byzantine, Machiavellian logic from politicians. But the truth is simple. Trial lawyers learn a good rule: ‘Don’t decide what you don’t have to decide.’ That’s not evasion, it’s wisdom.
We must get the American public to look past the glitter, beyond the showmanship, to the reality, the hard substance of things. And we’ll do it not so much with speeches that will bring people to their feet as with speeches that bring people to their senses.
When you’ve parked the second car in the garage, and installed the hot tub, and skied in Colorado, and wind-surfed in the Caribbean, when you’ve had your first love affair and your second and your third, the question will remain, where does the dream end for me?
We believe in only the government we need, but we insist on all the government we need.
I somehow got this reputation of diddling and dithering. I don’t remember dithering at all.
I think it’s already apparent that a good part of this Nation understands – if only instinctively – that anything which seems to suggest that God favors a political party or the establishment of a state church, is wrong and dangerous.
We work harder and we earn less. Income inequality is at the highest point in over a century. While American capitalism never guaranteed success, it did guarantee opportunity, for too many, the dream of economic mobility has been replaced with a nightmare of economic stagnation.
A judge can manipulate the law. A smart lawyer can keep a killer out of jail.
Every time I’ve done something that doesn’t feel right, it’s ended up not being right.