“He had an ability to surprise, as does every major idiot, and, of course, to irritate, all in the space of a single second.”

“Every single answer starts with the phrase 'I don't know.' But most of the time she does know, if I give her the time and the space in which to answer.”

“I've always admired your ability to be unilaterally irritating.”

“He called her a melon, a pineapple, an olive tree, an emerald, and a fox in the snow all in the space of three seconds; he did not know whether he had heard her, tasted her, seen her, or all three together.”

“And what constitutes evil, real evil, is the taking of a single human life. Whether a man would die tomorrow or the day after or eventually… it doesn't matter. Because if God does not exist, then life… every second of it… Is all we have.”

“It’s in the nature of a good despot to say anything that will convince someone to do as he wishes. Only when he does not need them does he really say what he thinks. And by that time, of course, because he has no need of them, they are usually as good as dead. The secret of becoming a successful tyrant lies in an early ability to be all things to all people.”

“Communism and socialism can be connected to a single major author—Marx—and assessed as deviations from, and implementations or negations of, Marx. Democracy is not amenable to a similar treatment; the towering, single major author on democracy does not exist.”

“Years go by, the time it does fly
And every single second is a moment in time
That passes oh so quick, and it seems like nothing
But when you're looking back well it amounts to everything”

“You underestimate the ability of people to act like idiots.”

“Sociometric space, e. g., the rating on a scale of leadership ability of each member of a group by every other member.”