"All we want, whether we are honeybees, salmon, trash-collecting ants, ponderosa pines, coyotes, human beings, or stars, is to love and be loved, to be accepted, cherished, and celebrated simply for being who we are. Is that so very difficult?"

"A culture that values production over life values the wrong things, because it will produce things at the expense of living beings, human or otherwise."

"I've since come to understand the reason school lasts thirteen years. It takes that long to sufficiently break a child's will. It is not easy to disconnect children's wills, to disconnect them from their own experiences of the world in preparation for the lives of painful employment they will have to endure."

"In order to maintain our way of living, we must tell lies to each other, and especially to ourselves."

"If your homeland were invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?"

"All the mega corporations on the planet make their obscene profits off the labor and suffering of others, with complete disregard for the effects on the workers, environment, and future generations. We have a straightforward proposal: if they want public money, we want public control. It's that simple."

"Learning has to come from doing, not intellectualizing."

"Surely by now there can be few here who still believe the purpose of government is to protect us from the destructive activities of corporations. At last most of us must understand that the opposite is true: that the primary purpose of government is to protect those who run the economy from the outrage of injured citizens."

"Love does not imply pacifism."

"Stand with me. Stand and fight. I am one, and we would be two. Two more might join and we would be four. When four more join we will be eight. We will be eight people fighting whom others will join. And then more people. And more. Stand and fight."

"Question four: What book would you give to every child? Answer: I wouldn't give them a book. Books are part of the problem: this strange belief that a tree has nothing to say until it is murdered, its flesh pulped, and then (human) people stain this flesh with words. I would take children outside and put them face to face with chipmunks, dragonflies, tadpoles, hummingbirds, stones, rivers, trees, crawdads. That said, if you're going to force me to give them a book, it would be The Wind In The Willows, which I hope would remind them to go outside."

"So long as we only believe in the justice of the state, of the law-made by those in power, to serve those in power-so long will we continue to be exploited by those in power."

"It's no wonder we don't defend the land where we live. We don't live here. We live in television programs and movies and books and with celebrities and in heaven and by rules and laws and abstractions created by people far away and we live anywhere and everywhere except in our particular bodies on this particular land at this particular moment in these particular circumstances."

"To be clear, civilization is not the same as society. Civilization is a specific, hierarchical organization based on 'power over.' Dismantling civilization, taking down that power structure, does not mean the end of all social order. It should ultimately mean more justice, more local control, more democracy, and more human rights, not less."

"I found golf late in life, in 1990. I took some lessons and struggled. Then one day, I hit a drive that was so crisp and clean, with no vibration. There's no feeling like it. I was hooked."

"Golf is meaningless, but it means so much."

"I'm lucky. I have a high metabolism, so I pretty much eat anything and everything."

"I used to eat a lot of fish, but I've been shying away from it because of the mercury thing. I eat more beef and chicken now."

"I really want to see the Cubs in the World Series. I really do."

"I don't see how it's a risky thing to take a great part with a great director and a great script. That, to me, is not really a dangerous, risky proposition. It's actually a really good choice."

"I still have my original love for acting. That's why I feel so lucky. I think that's what sustains me in the sort of leaner times."

"When I get a script, it's the only time that I get to be an audience member with the first-time experience of that movie. That's the first and only time."

"Wall Street has come to America's heartland, really. The only thing missing are the skyscrapers, you know?"

"I love politics, but I wouldn't want to be involved in it. Too little money, too much work!"