I had no idea this thing was televised. Boy, is my face red.
David Letterman

The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.
Edward Abbey

One has to be a lowbrow, a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, ready and willing to see people sacrificed, slaughtered, for the sake of an idea, whether a good one or a bad one.
Henry Miller

To live without killing is a thought which could electrify the world, if men were only capable of staying awake long enough to let the idea soak in.
Henry Miller

When I design a wedding dress with a bustle, it has to be one the bride can dance in. I love the idea that something is practical and still looks great.
Vera Wang

You know what the Englishman's idea of compromise is? He says, Some people say there is a God. Some people say there is no God. The truth probably lies somewhere between these two statements.
William Butler Yeats

The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind.
Marquis de Sade

All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself.
Charles Dickens

I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.
Charles Dickens

I didn't want to let women down. One of the stereotypes I see breaking is the idea of aging and older women not being beautiful.
Annie Leibovitz

No man ever quite believes in any other man. One may believe in an idea absolutely, but not in a man.
H. L. Mencken

It is not enough to merely defend democracy. To defend it may be to lose it; to extend it is to strengthen it. Democracy is not property; it is an idea.
Hubert H. Humphrey

To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!
H. L. Mencken

Platitude: an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true.
H. L. Mencken

Suffering is part of the divine idea.
Henry Ward Beecher

The real democratic American idea is, not that every man shall be on a level with every other man, but that every man shall have liberty to be what God made him, without hindrance.
Henry Ward Beecher

The sad part about our past is that religions, ironically enough, are responsible for creating the most destructive idea that has ever been visited upon the human race: the idea that there is such a thing as 'better.'
Neale Donald Walsch

I have no idea what the audience makes of me.
Keith Richards