“Awareness of mortality exerts a unique power to focus the mind and heart on essentials.”

“[On technology:] A realm of intimate, personal power is developing -- power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested.”

“But I have noticed this about ambitious men, or men in power, that they fear even the slightest and least likely threat to it.”

“At this point in history, our society tends to elevate and reward the specialist...This concentrated focus has brought some benefits...It may also be a modern malady. Specialization, when taken too far and allowed to define who and what we are, becomes limiting. It robs us of our wholeness and our self-sufficiency. It misses the big picture and confines us to a narrow zoom. And it leaves us at the mercy of experts.”

“If "con" is the opposite of pro, then isn't Congress the opposite of progress? Or did we just fucking blow your mind?!?”

“..the power outage caused the stage manager to drop the curtain - much to the surprise of Ronnie Wood, who was standing directly underneath it at the time and was almost killed by about half a ton of falling velvet (because, let me tell you, in those days a curtain was a curtain.) It was while we were backstage, getting the power restored, that I noticed I had spent the entire opening number with my flies undone.”

“If I was to really get at the burr in my saddle, it’s not politics — and this is, I think, probably a horrible analogy — but I look at politicians as, they are doing what inherently they need to do to retain power. Their job is to consolidate power. When you go to the zoo and you see a monkey throwing poop, you go, ‘That’s what monkeys do, what are you gonna do?’ But what I wish the media would do more frequently is say, ‘Bad monkey.”