Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root... Our military strength is a prerequisite to peace, but let it be clear we maintain this strength in the hope it will never be used, for the ultimate determinant in the struggle that's now going on in the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas, a trial of spiritual resolve, the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish, the ideals to which we are dedicated.

There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism.

John Stuart Mill

The male function is to produce sperm. We now have sperm banks.

Valerie Solanis

A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges.

Benjamin Franklin

Age does not protect you from love but love to some extent protects you from age.

Jeanne Moreau

The opening screen of T'Rain was a frank rip-off of what you saw when you booted up Google Earth. Richard felt no guilt about this, since he had heard that Google Earth, in turn, was based on an idea from some old science-fiction novel.

Neal Stephenson

Food is a coping mechanism people are afraid of giving it up because then they'll feel confused and lost.

Phil McGraw

Armageddon is not around the corner. This is only what the people of violence want us to believe. The complexity and diversity of the world is the hope for the future.

Michael Palin

We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think its forever.

Carl Sagan

the difference between poets and mystics . . . The mystic nails a symbol to one meaning that was true for a moment but soon becomes false. The poet, on the other hand, sees that truth but understands that symbols are always in flux and that their meanings are fleeting.

Neal Stephenson

The government would be able to go to court with respect to newspaper articles, broadcast pieces and the like that they thought were bad or harmful or even against the government and try to block them.

Floyd Abrams

Science Fiction will never run out of things to wonder about until the human race ceases to use its brain.

Julian May

I talked about my family, my family's so important.

Jim Valvano