Experience alone can give a final answer. The knowledge gained in a few years by a commission of the kind suggested would be worth more than volumes of mere assertions and contradictions.

In formal logic a contradiction is the signal of defeat but in the evolution of real knowledge it marks the first step in progress toward a victory.

Prediction is not just one of the things your brain does. It is the primary function of the neo-cortex and the foundation of intelligence.

Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.

Politics is not predictions and politics is not observations. Politics is what we do. Politics is what we do politics is what we create by what we work for by what we hope for and what we dare to imagine.

It is time to end the discrimination against people who need treatment for chemical addiction. It is time for Congress to deal with our Nation's number one public health problem.

Addiction should never be treated as a crime. It has to be treated as a health problem. We do not send alcoholics to jail in this country. Over 500 000 people are in our jails who are nonviolent drug users.

My biography of Frank Sinatra is not paean to his music but rather an illumination of the man behind the music who once described himself as 'an 18-karat manic-depressive who lived a life of violent emotional contradictions with an over-acute capacity for sadness as well as happiness.'

Coffee and smoking are the last great addictions.

I am absolutely opposed to a national ID card. This is a total contradiction of what a free society is all about. The purpose of government is to protect the secrecy and the privacy of all individuals not the secrecy of government. We don't need a national ID card.