The Founders recognized that Government is quite literally a necessary evil, that there must be opposition, between its various branches, and between political parties, for these are the only ways to temper the individual's greed for power and the electorates' desires for peace by submission to coercion or blandishment.

It is not the constitutional prerogative of the Government to determine needs.

One person may need (or want) more leisure, another more work; one more adventure, another more security, and so on. It is this diversity that makes a country, indeed a state, a city, a church, or a family, healthy. 'One-size-fits-all,' and that size determined by the State has a name, and that name is 'slavery.'

If, indeed, a firearm were more dangerous to its possessors than to potential aggressors, would it not make sense for the government to arm all criminals, and let them accidentally shoot themselves? Is this absurd? Yes, and yet the government, of course, is arming criminals.

I've always been more comfortable sinking while clutching a good theory than swimming with an ugly fact.

There's no such thing as talent; you just have to work hard enough.

We Americans have always considered Hollywood, at best, a sinkhole of depraved venality. And, of course, it is. It is not a protective monastery of aesthetic truth. It is a place where everything is incredibly expensive.

The poker player learns that sometimes both science and common sense are wrong; that the bumblebee can fly; that, perhaps, one should never trust an expert; that there are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of by those with an academic bent.

My dad was an immigrant kid and a Democrat and a Jew, and we didn't know any Republicans in our group. So I grew up Democratic. My dad was a labor lawyer - a very hardworking guy, a one-horse labor lawyer - and then I went to hippie college and lived in the bubble.

I didn't knowingly meet a conservative until, to my shame, I was 60 years old and sat down and said, 'Wow, I don't understand what this guy's talking about, but he has a great civility about him. Perhaps I better investigate this thing.'

My definition of a 'friend' is, coming from Chicago, someone who says, 'Yeah, sure. You know what? Let's talk about what we can talk about. Let's help each other out. Your politics are none of my business.'

My dad was a labour lawyer, and the ideas that I grew up with - bad management, bad capitalism, robber barons - when I applied this to my own life, I saw that we are all on both sides of the coin.

It's hard to write a good play because it's hard to structure a plot. If you can think of it off the top of your head, so can the audience.

The liberals in my neighbourhood wouldn't give away Brentwood to the Palestinians, but they want to give away Tel Aviv.

You get rich through luck. You get rich through crime. You get rich through fulfilling the needs of another. You can be as greedy as you like. If you can't do one of those three things, you ain't going to get any money.

Roll back the clock, and every possession of every great country started with a crime.

You can't write about history without writing about politics at some point. History is about movements of people. 'What is criminality and what is government' is a theme that runs through every history.

Obama is a tyrant the same way FDR was a tyrant. He has a view of presidential power that states: the government is in control of the country, and the president is in charge of the government. He's taken an imperial view of the presidency.

War is tragedy. The great war stories are tragedies. It's the failure of diplomacy. 'War and Peace,' 'A Farewell to Arms,' 'For Whom the Bell Tolls.' Those are some of the greatest tragedies.

I like Bach. I like Randy Newman.

I've been alienating my public since I was 20 years old. When 'American Buffalo' came out on Broadway, people would storm out and say, 'How dare he use that kind of language!' Of course I'm alienating the public! That's what they pay me for.

The Israelis would like to live in peace within their borders; the Arabs would like to kill them all.

Being among my people is a delight. We Jews live among ourselves. I love it.

I hate the computer. I hate their spell-check. I won't ever do e-mail.

I love working on a typewriter - the rhythm, the sound; it's like playing the piano, which I do, too.

I'm afraid of only two things: being lazy and being cowardly. I get up early in the morning and go to work. I love to write.

A play is basically a long, formalistic polemic. You can write it without the poetry, and if you do, you may have a pretty good play. We know this because we see plays in translation. Not many people speak Norwegian or Danish or whatever guys like Ibsen spoke, or Russian - yet we understand Chekhov and the others.

A stage play is basically a form of uber-schizophrenia. You split yourself into two minds - one being the protagonist and the other being the antagonist. The playwright also splits himself into two other minds: the mind of the writer and the mind of the audience.

The older you get, I have to say, the funnier you find life. That's the only way to go.

I hope there's a tinge of disgrace about me. Hopefully, there's one good scandal left in me yet.

I made a bit of a stink. At the time, it was considered very bad form.

Maybe at this stage in my career, it's from that younger generation that I have most to learn.

They do say that the profession gets increasingly difficult, but my career seems to have been inside out. I'm playing the biggest parts now that I'm older. That's probably right, because I wasn't ready for them before.

Yes, well, you are quite camp, so I guess that he could see the point of you.

I've always been on the side of fully emancipated women with independent minds.

I thought it was ridiculous that I was being paid less than a cameraman, and I wanted to shame them. And I did.

You can't actually legislate what goes on in people's minds and their attitudes, but you certainly can legislate for parity where pay and salaries are concerned.

If you're earning equal pay to a man, you get respect. It shouldn't be that way, but it is.

If you get serious about yourself as you get old, you are pathetic.

I think women of my age are still attractive.

I'm portrayed as this tough broad, but I'm not.

There was a guy called Carlos Thompson, who was I think Argentinian, and he was doing a series called 'Sentimental Agent'. That was the very first thing that I did. It was supposed to be taking place in some exotic location, but in actual fact, it was Chertsey with a few shivering potted palms.

Do you know, I have no idea how I got 'The Avengers'? I'd left the Royal Shakespeare Company, and I was one of a long list of girls, and got it on my audition.

You'll always be close to somebody that you worked with very intimately for so long, and you become really fond of each other.

In actual fact, I doubled 'Twelfth Night' and 'The Avengers'. I was going backwards and forwards to Stratford. I played matinees Wednesday, matinee and evenings Saturdays, and the other days of the week, I was filming in Elstree.

I think Thespis just wanted to be a solo player, you know?

I come from a generation which definitely treated anyone older and more successful with reverence. But it's much more democratic nowadays.

I've been single forever, and, oh God, I love every minute of it. I don't wish to sound offensive, and it always does when women say that, doesn't it?

It may be a masculine attitude to take lovers, but it's definitely prevalent. I'm certainly not the oldest person doing it - not that I'm doing it right now, but when I was.

I never get lonely; even as a child, I didn't.