Barbara Boxer is the most bitterly partisan, most anti-defense senator in the United States Senate today. I know that because I've had the unpleasant experience of having to serve with her.

Politicians don't like to face unpleasant realities. In truth, nobody does, but as individuals, we have no choice; if we neglect to plan ahead, we are held accountable. Fail to meet your responsibilities at work, and you get fired. Ignore your car's gas gauge, and you get stranded.

I am one of those people who are out of touch with their emotions. I tend to treat my emotions like unpleasant relatives - a long-distance call once or twice or year is more than enough. If I got in touch with them, they might come to stay.

There are so many unpleasant things in the world already that there is no use in imagining any more.

I've made so many people angry that they kind of blur into one unpleasant memory of people staring at you with somewhere between passive aggression and active aggression.

If you look at the Earth without architecture, it's sometimes a little bit unpleasant. So there is this basic human need to do shelter in the broadest sense of the word, whether it's a movie theater or a simple log cabin in the mountains. This is the core of architecture: To provide a space for human beings.

When I took part in European leaders summits, it was sometimes unpleasant for me to hear Romanian, Polish, Portuguese, and Italian friends speak English, although I admit that on an informal basis, first contacts can be made in this language. Nevertheless, I will defend everywhere the use of the French language.

What really excites me is the prospect of making people actually enjoy thinking about difficult topics, to laugh even while seriously engaging these very unpleasant subjects.

Fantasies are more than substitutes for unpleasant reality; they are also dress rehearsals, plans. All acts performed in the world begin in the imagination.

Idealism is no good. Any concrete dedication to an abstract condition results in unpleasant things like wars.

There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go.

Life is not a matter of theories. Life is a matter of facts. It calls on the young and the old alike to face these facts, even though they are hard and sometimes unpleasant.

The bravest person I've ever met was a young boy going through massive amounts of treatment for a very rare, complex and unpleasant disease. I last saw him at a Discworld convention, where he chose to take part in a game as an assassin. He died not long afterwards, and I wish I had his fortitude and sense of style.

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

I find writing very difficult. It's hard and it hurts sometimes, and it's scary because of the fear of failure and the very unpleasant feeling that you may have reached the limit of your abilities.

There's no fun in relationships. OK - that's not strictly true. I will agree that the first bit can be not totally unpleasant. There's the initial meeting and the heart quickening and the stomach-churning excitement of it all.

The sense of smell explores; deleterious substances almost always have an unpleasant smell.

And thought struggles against the results, trying to avoid those unpleasant results while keeping on with that way of thinking. That is what I call 'sustained incoherence.

Being falsely accused of racism is, at best, unpleasant and at worst, can destroy a career.

One of the problems with defending free speech is you often have to defend people that you find to be outrageous and unpleasant and disgusting.