American Quotes

When I say something untrue on the air, I mean for it to be transparently untrue. I assume people know when I'm just saying something for effect. Or to be funny.

We're Jews, my family, and Jews break down into two distinct subcultures: book Jews and money Jews. We were money Jews.

One reason I do the live shows - and the monthly speeches at public radio stations - is to remind myself that people hear the show, that it has an audience, that it exists in the world. It's so easy to forget that.

Just when did I get to the point when staying at a hotel wasn't fun?

It's not a terribly original thing to say, but I love Raymond Carver. For one thing, he's fun to read out loud.

In some theoretical way I know that a half-million people hear the show. But in a day-to-day way, there's not much evidence of it.

I think good radio often uses the techniques of fiction: characters, scenes, a big urgent emotional question. And as in the best fiction, tone counts for a lot.

I suppose I shouldn't go around admitting I speak untruths on the radio.

But you can make good radio, interesting radio, great radio even, without an urgent question, a burning issue at stake.

But sadly, one of the problems with being on public radio is that people tend to think you're being sincere all the time.

You'd think that radio was around long enough that someone would have coined a word for staring into space.

Is there any reason why the American people should be taxed to guarantee the debts of banks, any more than they should be taxed to guarantee the debts of other institutions, including merchants, the industries, and the mills of the country?

A liberal is a man who is willing to spend somebody else's money.

We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts.

We foolishly did not realize Saddam was stupid.

Praise does wonders for our sense of hearing.

Laughter is a tranquilizer with no side effects.

Half a psychiatrist's patients see him because they are married - the other half because they're not.

Fear is the lengthened shadow of ignorance.

The trouble with the future is that is usually arrives before we're ready for it.

Progress is what happens when impossibility yields to necessity.

Nothing splendid was ever created in cold blood. Heat is required to forge anything. Every great accomplishment is the story of a flaming heart.

Make your life a mission - not an intermission.

Improvement begins with I.

Nothing lasts forever - not even your troubles.

The fewer the facts, the stronger the opinion.

One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.

It is harder to conceal ignorance than to acquire knowledge.

Ideas not coupled with action never become bigger than the brain cells they occupied.

Expecting something for nothing is the most popular form of hope.