We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions. We are haunted, not by reality, but by those images we have put in their place.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers.

The world of crime is a last refuge of the authentic, uncorrupted, spontaneous event.

We need not be theologians to see that we have shifted responsibility for making the world interesting from God to the newspaperman.

Knowledge is not simply another commodity. On the contrary. Knowledge is never used up. It increases by diffusion and grows by dispersion.

Technology is so much fun but we can drown in our technology. The fog of information can drive out knowledge.

The celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness.

We read advertisements... to discover and enlarge our desires. We are always ready - even eager - to discover, from the announcement of a new product, what we have all along wanted without really knowing it.

Nothing is really real unless it happens on television.

I've learned any fool can write a bad ad, but it takes a real genius to keep his hands off a good one.

An image is not simply a trademark, a design, a slogan or an easily remembered picture. It is a studiously crafted personality profile of an individual, institution, corporation, product or service.

As you make your bed, so you must lie in it.

A sign of celebrity is that his name is often worth more than his services.

Time makes heroes but dissolves celebrities.

Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know.

We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions. We are haunted, not by reality, but by those images we have put in their place.

As individuals and as a nation, we now suffer from social narcissism. The beloved Echo of our ancestors, the virgin America, has been abandoned. We have fallen in love with our own image, with images of our making, which turn out to be images of ourselves.

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge.

A best-seller was a book which somehow sold well because it was selling well.

The courage to imagine the otherwise is our greatest resource, adding color and suspense to all our life.

I write to discover what I think. After all, the bars aren't open that early.

The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes "sight-seeing."

Human models are more vivid and more persuasive than explicit moral commands.

Freedom means the opportunity to be what we never thought we would be.

Reading is like the sex act - done privately, and often in bed.

A wonderful thing about a book, in contrast to a computer screen, is that you can take it to bed with you.

The force of the advertising word and image dwarfs the power of other literature in the 20th century.

The most important American addition to the World Experience was the simple surprising fact of America. We have helped prepare mankind for all its later surprises.

The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes 'sight-seeing.'

No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever.

As individuals and as a nation we now suffer from social narcissism. The beloved Echo of our ancestors the virgin America has been abandoned. We have fallen in love with our own image with images of our making which turn out to be images of ourselves.

A celebrity is a person known for his well knownness. Celebrities intensify their celebrity images simply by being well known for relations among themselves. By a kind of symbiosis celebrities live off each other.

destruction is easy for humans but creation is too difficult.

Disagreement produces debate but dissent produces dissension.

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance it is the illusion of knowledge.

Education is learning what you didnt even know you didnt know.

The hero was distinguished by his achievement the celebrity by his image or trademark. The hero created himself the celebrity is created by the media. The hero was a big man the celebrity is a big name.

The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes sight-seeing.

I try to ground most of my characters in reality somehow. That's kind of what I bring to the table.

Generally students are the best vehicles for passing on ideas, for their thoughts are plastic and can be molded and they can adjust the ideas of old men to the shape of reality as they find it in villages and hills of China or in ghettos and suburbs of America.

Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.

We must admit with humility that, while number is purely a product of our minds, space has a reality outside our minds, so that we cannot completely prescribe its properties a priori.

Sometimes you get caught up in what's going on around you. The reality is that you are just a regular person. At some point, the career will be over, the bright lights turn off. That can come back to haunt you if you're not just a regular guy.

It's about the power of design and the power of the human spirit. It's above paying anybody to do something stupid for money like reality television does - like ambushing people.

I mean, the reality is unemployment today - over 14 million Americans are unemployed. That's exactly what it was a year ago. I mean, this - the American people know we can't borrow and spend and bail our way back to a growing economy.

There is only one admirable form of the imagination: the imagination that is so intense that it creates a new reality, that it makes things happen.

And then, I suppose, there's also a cinematic reality on top of that. Because it was extremely difficult to keep tabs on, it was quite confusing acting that.

In reality, the most important things happen when you don't look for them.

What I would have liked to do on that show was play a secretary of state who has huge personal business interests throughout the world. That, to me, seems to be more in synch with reality.