I maintained my edge by always being a student; you will always have something new to learn.

Each position, each metre of the Soviet territory must be stubbornly defended, to the last drop of blood. We must cling to every inch of Soviet soil and defend it to the end!

What is going on right now, it is unacceptable, it is wrong. However, it must be admitted that it is the result of inaccurate regulation, that was brought in recently in the sphere of energy, in energy resources.

The words which express our faith and piety are not definite; yet they are significant and fragrant like frankincense to superior natures.

Eating is touch carried to the bitter end.

He is now rising from affluence to poverty.

If he really thinks there is no distinction between vice and virtue, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.

[Governments are] …without exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society.

I’m living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart.

I was looking at Jane Fonda last night. And you know why she always looks great? Because there was never a point where you say, ‘Hey, remember those two years when Fonda got fat?’ It never happened. You just have to keep that baseline. That goddamn baseline.

I would say that a composer writes music to express and communicate and put down in permanent form certain thoughts, emotions and states of being. The resultant work of art should speak to the men and women of the artist’s own time with a directness and immediacy of communicative power that no previous art expression can give.

When a man laughs at his troubles he loses a great many friends. They never forgive the loss of their prerogative.

There is nothing more stuntastic than rapping in front of an orchestra.

One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly, until he knows that every day is Doomsday.

I’m not a God, I make mistakes.

Man is the artificer of his own happiness.

[on Anthony Weiner] I remember him now… the man whose name is so perfect for the scandal he was caught up in that it rekindled my faith in God.

What kind of city are we living in, if we encourage the development or ownership of large, expensive properties for investment and land banking… while people are sleeping on the streets?

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.

That’s what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure one fool tells him he’s wise.

You don’t get anything clean without getting something else dirty.