I think in the ’70s that there was a general feeling of chaos, a feeling that the idea of the ’60s as ‚ideal‘ was a misnomer. Nothing seemed ideal anymore. Everything seemed in-between.

There’s the chaos surrounding the practical day-to-day – playdates, doctors‘ appointments, packing and unpacking, and organizing mealtimes.

You can say, ‚Well, isn’t it unfortunate that chaos is represented by the feminine‘ – well, it might be unfortunate, but it doesn’t matter, because that is how it’s represented. It’s been represented like that forever. And there are reasons for it. You can’t change it. It’s not possible. This is underneath everything.

I’m not concerned about all hell breaking loose, but that a PART of hell will break loose… it’ll be much harder to detect.

I have spent the greater part of my life in a hotel room with seven or eight kids, looking after everyone, sorting out fights, wiping noses, handing out towels, not having a clean towel left for me.

Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction.

The battlefield is a scene of constant chaos. The winner will be the one who controls that chaos, both his own and the enemies.

Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist.

What we need is a system of thought – you might even call it a religion – that can bind humans together. A system that would fit the Republic of Chad as well as the United States: a system that would supply our idealistic young people with something to believe in.

Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.

The assumption is that your personal life has to be a mess to create, but how much chaos can you allow in before it takes over?

There is in me an anarchy and frightful disorder. Creating makes me die a thousand deaths, because it means making order, and my entire being rebels against order. But without it I would die, scattered to the winds.

Political chaos is connected with the decay of language… one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.

Words without actions are the assassins of idealism.

The stores and the things like that, the business side of things came out at the point when, I’d say probably in the early ’70s, it looked like the year of the singer-songwriter was over, ‚cause music changed in our time and the spotlight was out.

I can’t really criticize the Tea Party people, because I came into the White House pretty much on the same basis that they have become popular. That is dissatisfaction with the way things are going in Washington and disillusionment and disencouragement about the government.

Blacks have had to learn to protect themselves by being cynical but not cynical enough to slam the door on potential opportunities. We go through life walking a tightrope to prevent too much disillusionment.

What is the use of writing plays, what is the use of writing anything, if there is not a will which finally moulds chaos itself into a race of gods.

Really, I have to laugh because there was a whole set of stories that made me sound like the Dragon Lady, you know, ‚tough this and tough that.‘ Then there is this business about ‚gooey.‘ The bottom line is I am a pragmatic idealist.

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

In the ’60s and ’70s and early ’80s, the trainers would grind you, and eventually they would break something – they would break an ankle in ways that it would heal. It was just the way of the business, to ensure that you learned respect for wrestling.

The President is not only the leader of a party, he is the President of the whole people. He must interpret the conscience of America. He must guide his conduct by the idealism of our people.

I’m an idealist without illusions.

Wishful thinking is not idealism. It is self-indulgence at best and self-exaltation at worst. In either case, it is usually at the expense of others. In other words, it is the opposite of idealism.

Everybody is idealistic when you’re a kid.

In Latin America, specialists and polling organisations have, for some time, observed that the extension of formal democracy was accompanied by an increasing disillusionment about democracy and a lack of faith in democratic institutions.

Battle is an orgy of disorder.

We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society.

Once I started working with generative music in the 1970s, I was flirting with ideas of making a kind of endless music – not like a record that you’d put on, which would play for a while and finish.

My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.

You may never get to that perfect world that you’re waiting for where everything’s going to be perfect and you got that much money and your house paid off.

In the ’70s, terrorism was much more serious, in that many more people got killed.

Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven.

After the chaos and carnage of September 11th, it is not enough to serve our enemies with legal papers.

We talk about this concept of openness and transparency as the high-level ideal that we’re moving towards at Facebook. The way that we get there is by empowering people to share and connect. The combination of those two things leads the world to become more open.

I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

Our goal in the ’70s was to end the closed door era. There were so many things that were off limits to women: policing, firefighting, mining, piloting planes.

An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.

I cycled when I was at high school, then reconnected with bikes in New York in the late ’70s. It was a good way of getting around the clubs and galleries of the Lower East Side and Soho.

To study history means submitting to chaos and nevertheless retaining faith in order and meaning.

I have always seen the United States as a force of good. And I have learned that there is the idealistic part about what we can do at the U.N. and there is a doable part. And I have learned what is more doable.

Chaos is inherent in all compounded things. Strive on with diligence.

Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.

Now I realize that from ’72 through to about ’76, I was the ultimate rock star. I couldn’t have been more rock star.

What makes us Americans is our shared commitment to an ideal – that all of us are created equal, and all of us have the chance to make of our lives what we will.

‚Royal Beatings‘ was my first story, and it was published in 1977. But I sent all my early stories to ‚The New Yorker‘ in the 1950s, and then I stopped sending for a long time and sent only to magazines in Canada. ‚The New Yorker‘ sent me nice notes, though – penciled, informal messages. They never signed them. They weren’t terribly encouraging.

In retrospect, I do think it’s fair to say that we were overly idealistic and focused on more of the good parts of what connecting people and giving people a voice can bring.

Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man.

An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous.

The road to perdition has ever been accompanied by lip service to an ideal.

Chaos is a friend of mine.

Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.

Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.

While I understand the passions and the anger that arise over the death of Michael Brown, giving into that anger by looting or carrying guns, and even attacking the police, only serves to raise tensions and stir chaos.

I think you should always bear in mind that entropy is not on your side.

It is not materialism that is the chief curse of the world, as pastors teach, but idealism. Men get into trouble by taking their visions and hallucinations too seriously.

It was like being in the eye of a hurricane. You’d wake up in a concert and think, Wow, how did I get here?

Americans admire a people who can scratch a desert and produce a garden. The Israelis have shown qualities that Americans identify with: guts, patriotism, idealism, a passion for freedom. I have seen it. I know. I believe that.

A hustler has to deal with danger and risk. It’s part of the game. You cannot control it all, nor would you want to. Chaos, unknown factors are not something to be anxious about.

All that we call ideal in Greek or any other art, because to us it is false and visionary, was, to the makers of it, true and existent.

In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.