Administering another country is always a very tricky proposition.

If you put your politicians up for sale, as the US does (alone in this among industrialized democracies), then someone will buy them--and it won’t be you; you can’t afford them.

I argued that the Bush administration, and the Coalition officials more recently, didn't understand Iraqi society. They thought it was a blank slate, that they could use Iraqis as guinea pigs.

My main expertise is in the past, but if I have to extrapolate into the future, I would say: no good news any time soon and an obvious exit strategy is not apparent to me.

I don't accept the argument of people like David Horowitz that the government should impose some sort of predetermined political balance on academic research.

It's not proper for a professor to go before a class and promote one party or another. That's not academic scholarship.

Partisan politics has no place in the classroom.

Public interest in most of the Middle East was slight at that time; the Arab-Israeli conflict was all that people were interested in and that was not my specialty.

I also argued before the war that the administration was underestimating Arab nationalism and Iraqi nationalism, that it was not going to be as easy to rule Iraq as they thought.

I think it's really unfortunate that academics have been sidelined in most important policy debates.

An occupying power has no right to make significant alterations in the character of the occupied society, to change the laws all around, without a strong security reason and so forth.

Some women's arms are placed of exile

Making the best of things is a damn poor way of dealing with them. My life has been a series of escapes from that quicksand.

You may not like what I see but I don't like what you do.

And people think she killed him?" said Miss Tick. She sighed. "They probably think she cooked him in the oven, or somet

Ponzi schemes don’t trickle down, they siphon up.

It is the spur of ignorance the consciousness of not understanding and the curiosity about that which lies beyond that are essential to our progress.

I want to be safe in the knowledge that I can tour and play festivals for a long time. The main thing is that I want a good reputation as a live performer. If I have that, I'd be so happy.

I'm grateful to have gone through so many different seasons of life because without those years of searching, I'd still have no idea who I am and what Andrew Ripp really has to say.

Its better to shoot and miss, then to let time run out and wonder what if

The biggest problem for me was feeling that as I became more balanced and a better man that I wouldn't have the fire to create from.