A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today - and in fact we have forgotten.

If anything characterizes the cultural life of the seventies in America it is an insistence on preventing failures of communication.

As somebody who in my second marriage insisted on a prenuptial agreement I can also testify that sometimes it is an act of love to chart the exit strategy before you enter the union in order to make sure that not only you but your partner as well knows that there will be no World War III should hearts and minds for any sad reason change.

In the end the humanities can only be defended by stressing how indispensable they are and this means insisting on their vital role in the whole business of academic learning rather than protesting that like some poor relation they don't cost much to be housed.

Punctuality is one of the cardinal business virtues: always insist on it in your subordinates.

My mother is a big believer in being responsible for your own happiness. She always talked about finding joy in small moments and insisted that we stop and take in the beauty of an ordinary day. When I stop the car to make my kids really see a sunset I hear my mother's voice and smile.

Jazz in itself is not struggling. That is the music itself is not struggling... It's the attitude that's in trouble. My plays insist that we should not forget or toss away our history.

Liberalism is an attitude rather than a set of dogmas - an attitude that insists upon questioning all plausible and self-evident propositions seeking not to reject them but to find out what evidence there is to support them rather than their possible alternatives.

As I grew older I realized that it was much better to insist on the genuine forms of nature for simplicity is the greatest adornment of art.

It is impossible as impossible as to raise the dead to restore anything that has ever been great or beautiful in architecture. That which I have insisted upon as the life of the whole that spirit which is given only by the hand and eye of the workman can never be recalled.

Experts on romance say for a happy marriage there has to be more than a passionate love. For a lasting union they insist there must be a genuine liking for each other. Which in my book is a good definition for friendship.

People must insist on the right to say no to be alone to stand out from the herd. Creative artists can say all this in their own way and in their own field by hard rigorous work.

If you would have your son to walk honourably through the world you must not attempt to clear the stones from his path but teach him to walk firmly over them - not insist upon leading him by the hand but let him learn to go alone.

In passing we should note this curious mark of our own age: the only absolute allowed is the absolute insistence that there is no absolute.