Without sounding too grandiose, the survival of the planet itself is at stake, you have rising sea levels, acidification of the oceans, immigration sparked by climate change, droughts that are much more severe.
The recognized achievements of some Negroes, despite rigid racial barriers, indicate that society by its prejudices may be depriving itself of valuable contributions from many others. It is now doubtful whether America can afford the luxury of such a waste of human resources.
The stakes in my books tend to be kind of ridiculously high. In 'Kid vs. Squid,' the question is whether or not the California coast will be subsumed by the ocean in favor of the creation of a new Atlantis. In 'The Boy at the End of the World,' what's at stake is the survival of the human species.
I have no prejudices: all my irrational hatreds are based on solid evidence.
Racists are irrational and illogical in their attempts to justify their prejudices.
What I find very interesting is, we're not enthralled by the ancient world, and we've escaped all kinds of ancient preconceptions and assumptions and prejudices. But, nevertheless, we still make that connection between authoritative speech and male speech.
The question of immortality is of its nature not a scholarly question. It is a question welling up from the interior which the subject must put to itself as it becomes conscious of itself.
I believe that there are barriers, educational barriers, cultural barriers, societal barriers, that are keeping people from accessing the promise of a vibrant free enterprise economy.
Among our people, theres not any question about women being strong -- even stronger than men -- they work in the fields right along with the men. When your survival is at stake, you dont have these questions about yourself like middle -- class women do.
The biggest thing growing cities need to do is minimize barriers to development so that as long as someone is doing good urbanism, they can get permitted quickly and get building quickly.
Lift the curtain and 'the State' reveals itself as a little group of fallible men in Whitehall, making guesses about the future, influenced by political prejudices and partisan prejudices, and working on projections drawn from the past by a staff of economists.
You need to be hyper-aware because it's your survival at stake.
I have no race prejudices, and I think I have no color prejudices or caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. Indeed I know it. I can stand any society. All that I care to know is that a man is a human being-that is enough for me; he can't be any worse.
I believe, in the stock market - that's one of my fields - that most people are irrational. And to be irrational, you can be irrational in so many different ways that, practically, the result is indeterminate.
As the struggle for survival has subsided, the question has emerged: survival for what? Ever more people have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.
Humanity as a species must change dramatically and radically or our survival is at stake.