I was not sympathetic to the assumption that criminals had radically different motivations from everyone else.

The Treatise tries to analyze not only modern Western families, but also those in other cultures and the changes in family structure during the past several centuries.

A stronger yuan could lead to greater Chinese asset accumulation in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Fines are preferable to imprisonment and other types of punishment because they are more efficient. With a fine, the punishment to offenders is also revenue to the State.

Why in almost all societies have married women specialized in bearing and rearing children and in certain agricultural activities, whereas married men have done most of the fighting and market work?

My work on human capital began with an effort to calculate both private and social rates of return to men, women, blacks, and other groups from investments in different levels of education.

Still, intuitive assumptions about behavior is only the starting point of systematic analysis, for alone they do not yield many interesting implications.

I was not sympathetic to the assumption that criminals had radically different motivations from everyone else.

When you face unexpected events, you have to try to overcome those problems, but at the same time, you have to continue working according to the plan that you defined since the beginning. So that's what we have tried to do - not to avoid the urgent responses but to continue the route that we had defined.

I prize the conditions under which I have lived because they have permitted me to choose my opportunities, to inquire into such matters as interested me, and to publish what I believed to be true, uncontrolled by any central authority.

A guitar can be so human, so sorrowful, so angry, and I wanted to figure out how to achieve that vibe without having to actually use guitars, because 'Badlands' is a very futuristic record - and making it that in an era of futuristic music is a really hard thing to do!

The great thing about new friends is that they bring new energy to your soul.

I have a fear of public speaking. It's very hard work. Words are not my skill, and because they're not my skill, I have to work doubly hard.

Each fresh peak ascended teaches something.

Competitiveness has been a big thing for me.

Life is short and we never have enough time for the hearts of those who travel the way with us. O, be swift to love! Make haste to be kind.

You know, I always wondered what it would have been like to just go to school, play football with the guys and go to the prom. Just like a 'regular person.'

My favorite actor is Wallace Beery.

Now Autumn's fire burns slowly along the woods and day by day the dead leaves fall and melt.

Many people resented my impatience and honesty, but I never cared about acceptance as much as I cared about respect.

Hannibal Lecter stole Leatherface's mask and ported the slasher conventions into the thriller for the early '90s.

Glue actually contaminates recyclables. We throw things in a landfill just because they're glued together.

We have our own reasons for what's motivating us right now.

Thanks to a hacker known as Guccifer who wormed into the computer of the 43rd president's sister, the world has learned that George W. Bush is an amateur - I would say serious amateur - painter.

It was in San Diego and I was onstage and couldn't remember how to play the guitar properly. I was in terrible pain and my nervous system was just going wild, like somebody had just run a car over me.

It is possible that, through horizontal and vertical lines constructed with awareness, but not with calculation, led by high intuition, and brought to harmony and rhythm, these basic forms of beauty, supplemented if necessary by other direct lines or curves, can become a work of art, as strong as it is true.

The success that Americans are said to worship is success of a specific sort: accomplished not through hard work, primarily, but through the ingenious angle, the big break. Sit down at a lunch counter, stand back up a star. Invest in a new issue and watch it soar. Split a single atom, win a war.

A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted. You should live several lives while reading it.

Hunger in America is an American problem. The hunger of one should be the concern of all. Especially the hunger of children - our children.

The people's desires have changed, but we're still stuck in our old issue set.

As a property developer, I learned a long time ago to choose your battles wisely and that, unfortunately, compromise is a given.

I'm not making films just to be bold.