Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.

Any nation that thinks more of its ease and comfort than its freedom will soon lose its freedom and the ironical thing about it is that it will lose its ease and comfort too.

Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.

A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

A society that thinks the choice between ways of living is just a choice between equally eligible 'lifestyles' turns universities into academic cafeterias offering junk food for the mind.

Cats are very independent animals. They're very sexy if you want. Dogs are different. They're familiar. They're obedient. You call a cat you go 'Cat come here.' He doesn't come to you unless you have something in your hand that he thinks might be food. They're very free animals and I like that.

Money is kind of a base subject. Like water food air and housing it affects everything yet for some reason the world of academics thinks it's a subject below their social standing.

The problem of how we finance the welfare state should not obscure a separate issue: if each person thinks he has an inalienable right to welfare no matter what happens to the world that's not equity it's just creating a society where you can't ask anything of people.

Between the fear that something would happen and the hope that still it wouldn't there is much more space than one thinks. On that narrow hard bare and dark space a lot of us spend their lives.

In fact I'd just like to own something. Everyone thinks I'm glamorous rich and famous but all I've got is some recording equipment and a battered old BMW.

I'd love to live in Ireland but I'd like to live as me not what someone thinks I am. People don't understand - I lived there before I was famous.

No doubt the White House thinks the American people know Obama's story. But since the Inauguration we've seen only the president's present: his perfect family his Ivy League elegance his effortless mastery of complex issues. We never see him sweat. And we forget that he ever had to struggle.

I have written too much history to have faith in it and if anyone thinks I'm wrong I am inclined to agree with him.

America thinks of itself as a meritocracy so people have more respect for success and more contempt for failure.

Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes.

No man can be a failure if he thinks he's a success If he thinks he is a winner then he is.

For me titles are either a natural two-second experience or stressful enough to give you an ulcer. If they don't pop out perfect on the first try they can be really hard to repair. Or worse if the author thinks they pop out perfect but the publishing house does not agree it's difficult to shift gears. And then? Then you go insane.

Everybody thinks that equality comes from identifying people and that's not where equality comes from.

A woman who thinks she is intelligent demands the same rights as man. An intelligent woman gives up.

An educated man is thoroughly inoculated against humbug thinks for himself and tries to give his thoughts in speech or on paper some style.

When you say 'design ' everybody thinks of magazine pages. So it's an emotive word. Everybody thinks it's how something looks whereas for me design is pretty much everything.

Everybody thinks I'm at death's door but I'm not. There's nothing seriously wrong with me and my heart is in 100 percent working order. Anything else you may hear is a damn lie!

My dad thinks Obama is a socialist and all these extreme views.

In the 'Garnethill' trilogy people always forget that Maureen O'Donnell's dad was a journalist and she did art history at uni and her brother did law but no-one ever thinks they're middle-class - they're just working class because they speak with accents.