"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever."

"Debt is a trap, especially student debt, which is enormous, far larger than credit card debt. It's a trap for the rest of your life because the laws are designed so that you can't get out of it. If a business, say, gets in too much debt, it can declare bankruptcy, but individuals can almost never be relieved of student debt through bankruptcy."

"Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state."

"International affairs is very much run like the mafia. The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn't pay his protection money. You have to have obedience; otherwise, the idea can spread that you don't have to listen to the orders, and it can spread to important places."

"Well, for us, in history where goodness is a rare pearl, he who was good almost takes precedence over he who was great."

"I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is."

"Philosophy finds it an easy matter to vanquish past and future evils, but the present are commonly too hard for it."

"My major allegiance has been to storytelling, not to history."