Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The opening scene in A New Hope, when you see the huge ship, it goes on, and on, and on, and on, and on... that is like a joke of awesomeness.
I started to read as obsessively about Star Wars as I once did about Kant - and still do about behavioral economics and behavioral psychology.
I strongly believe that the Second Amendment creates an individual right to possess and use guns for purposes of both hunting and self-defense.
A system of limitless individual choices, with respect to communications, is not necessarily in the interest of citizenship and self-government.
If you have a regulation that's going to save hundreds of thousands of lives annually and not cost very much, that sounds like a very good idea.
Today's uses of the Second Amendment may invoke James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, but they have a lot more to do with interest-group politics.
Some of the Hulk movies have been merely okay. I think the thing to do... there has to be some stab that makes it something we haven't seen before.
Employers, like most people, tend to trust their intuitions. But when employers decide whom to hire, they trust those intuitions far more than they should.
The process of getting regulations right is described publicly as far more political than in fact it is. It's essentially a legal and technical enterprise.
There are some lawyers who think of themselves as basically instruments of whoever their clients are, and they pride themselves on their professional craft
There are some lawyers who think of themselves as basically instruments of whoever their clients are, and they pride themselves on their professional craft.
A lot of people are focused on climate change as a defining challenge of our time. A lot of people think it is a non-problem, at least in the United States.
Individual investors beware: If you're constantly worried about a crash, you're probably making some big mistakes - and losing a lot of money in the process.
In 'The Force Awakens,' women as well as men are in positions of authority. And you don't have to work hard to do that - it's not a statement, it's the world.
It's one thing to make financial aid available to students so they can attend college. It's another thing to design forms that students can actually fill out.
Wherever people find themselves in trouble, or at some kind of crossroads, the series proclaims you are free to choose. That's the deepest lesson of 'Star Wars.'
I love Richard Thaler's 'Quasi Rational Economics.' A collection of some of his most interesting and inventive essays, the real foundation of behavioral economics.
Antonin Scalia was witty, warm, funny, and full of life. He was not only one of the most important justices in the nation's history; he was also among the greatest.
Having a constant productive anxiety doesn't mean that people are miserable and wailing but that people know they will be held accountable if things do not go right.
Catholicism is a wide tent in terms of political and legal positions. We could have nine Catholics on the Supreme Court and a great deal of diversity toward the law.
Somewhat more broadly, I will suggest that animals should be permitted to bring suit, with human beings as their representatives, to prevent violations of current law.
They call soccer the beautiful game, but if I had to identify just one sport to show members of some alien species what the human race is all about, I'd nominate squash.
Usually, to promote a new work, I'll aspire to be published in the 'Columbia Law Review' or the 'Stanford Law Review' and to have at least five really enticing footnotes.
At least since 1947, the historical record seems to support a simple conclusion: If you want the American economy to grow, you ought to put a Democrat in the Oval Office.
There are bursts of things like Abraham Lincoln or Ronald Reagan or Franklin Delano Roosevelt or same-sex marriage that change very much what we thought we were all about.
I think it's a very firm part of human nature that if you surround yourself with like-minded people, you'll end up thinking more extreme versions of what you thought before.
Probably, if we looked at Da Vinci or Michelangelo with care, we'd see a historical particularity that the work is not treated as having. It's certainly true of Shakespeare.
In the end, 'Star Wars' insists that you can't be redeemed without attachment. That's the strongest message of the saga, and that's what makes it speak to people's deepest selves.
Facebook seems to think that it would be liberating if everyone's News Feed could be personalized so that people see only and exactly what they want. Don't believe it. That's a prison.
I wouldn't call Trump supporters or Sanders supporters fanatical. One thing, I would say they're very discouraged with where things are. I don't think in either case they're fanatical.
Whatever your gender, you can be a Star Wars fan. Of course I knew it from life before, but the core of enthusiastic female fans is a testimony to the non-gendered nature of the audience.
By their innocence and goodness, by their boundless capacity for forgiveness, and by the sheer power of their faith and hope, children redeem their parents, bringing out their best selves.
I think President Obama has been an extraordinarily successful president, and that this period will record that with a bunch of exclamation points. But obviously, not everybody thinks that.
If you take anything that succeeded, just imagine it succeeding 10 years before or 10 years after, you could almost always make, with the same plausibility, the "it fit the times" argument.
When I was an academic, I'd sometimes get a little feeling of excitement when I had an idea that was, I hoped, fresh. And whether anyone should act on that idea is a very different question.
As an academic, a great deal of my time is spent writing, with very little in meetings. In government, the premium is placed on figuring things out through discussing them with other people.
If I may discuss the idea of explosion. The number of regulations issued in the last two years is approximately the same as the number issued in the last two years of the Bush administration.
From the standpoint of democratic legitimacy, it's a problem if half the electorate, or close to it, declines to vote, not least because they may not feel much of a stake in the whole process.
We might have new issues involving information technology for example, or new questions arising out of the war on terror, or new issues arising from natural disasters that can't be anticipated.
I'll tell you an explanation that I find commonly overrated and speculative in the extreme: the idea that things that succeed in popular culture do that because they hit the temper of the times.
A few weeks ago, I was at the gym, talking to a friend about politics. Overhearing the conversation, a young man - maybe 25 years old - interrupted to say, 'Obama? He hasn't done a single thing!'
I think President Barack Obama has been an extraordinarily successful president, and that this period will record that with a bunch of exclamation points. But obviously not everybody thinks that.
The middle class is not doing well, and trade policy might have something to do with that, and so someone who is going to be fixated on those things, who has a business background, has some appeal.
Every human being has an assortment of diverse identities, and it greatly matters which one is triggered by social situations, which hold up different kinds of mirrors. The same is true for nations.
My own view is that institutions are a glory, and for all their imperfections, something really to be proud of. It is true that things can be a lot better than they are. It's okay to emphasize that.
I dealt with people with diverse political views. If you find people who are your political opponents, and talk to them for an hour, chances are you're going to like them, and they're not full of hate.
Almost all gun control legislation is constitutionally fine. And, if the court is right, then fundamentalism does not justify the view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms.
Many Americans abhor paternalism. They think that people should be able to go their own way, even if they end up in a ditch. When they run risks, even foolish ones, it isn't anybody's business that they do.
If a company has acted badly, people want to punish it - not in order to deter future misconduct, but simply because they're outraged. And the more outraged they are, the more punishment they want to inflict.
As presidents from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama have recognized, the real question is whether regulations, whether new or old, are justified. That requires a careful analysis of their costs and their benefits.