A state's potential power is based on the size of its population and the level of its wealth.

In the anarchic world of international politics, it is better to be Godzilla than Bambi.

States care about relative wealth, because economic might is the foundation of military might.

The sad fact is that international politics has always been a ruthless and dangerous business, and it is likely to remain that way.

Simply put, the most powerful state is the one that prevails in a dispute.

Offensive realism predicts that the United States will send its army across the Atlantic when there is a potential hegemon in Europe that the local great powers cannot contain by themselves.

Decapitation is a fanciful strategy.

China, in short has the potential to be considerably more powerful than even the United States.

States have two kinds of power: latent power and military power.

Bandwagoning is a strategy for the weak.

Great powers must be forever vigilant and never subordinate survival to any other goal, including prosperity.

Good ideas stay with you until you eventually write the story.

Friendship is something in the soul. It is a thing one feels. It is not a return for something.

Some love is so powerful after all, that it must always include sadness, because encrypted within it is the knowledge that someday it will come to an end.

I thought three minutes and twelve seconds would undo me. Now I’m trapped. I cannot survive in this elevator. Not with him, Not for much longer Another second.

Youth endures all things, kings and poetry and love. Everything but time.

Great passions may either bring great victories or great sorrows! In both cases, it is always a great privilege to have great passions!

Brazil is my way to see the world. Being born in that country means: "you don't have a wall separating the physical reality from the magical reality."

Deeply I go down into myself. My god is Dark and like a webbing made of a hundred roots that drink in silence.

During my sabbatical, I spent two years not listening to my songs at all.

I was not elected to produce a pile of vetoes.