By the time of the GDR's demise, two in every 13 citizens were informers.

Paradoxically, in its quest to make Americans more secure, the NSA has made American communications less secure; it has undermined the safety of the entire internet.

Strict shopping laws mean that most German shops close on Saturday afternoons, reopening only on Monday when everybody is back at work.

The common theme here was contempt: a poisonous disregard for human life. For Vladimir Putin’s critics have an uncanny habit of turning up dead.

Everything worth knowing about the 1980s I learned from obsessively reading Bloom County collections when I was nine and Derek Jarman's diaries when I was twenty.

You broke my heart.I fell for you and you broke my heart.Period, done, end of story.

You cannot climb the ladder of success dressed in the costume of failure.

We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others.

You'd like to see your team reasonably happy, but that's not your job. Gain their respect and get them to accept their roles

Benny Goodman was one of the big influences as a clarinet player. That's why I wanted the clarinet.

It is spiritual poverty, not material lack, that lies at the core of all human suffering.

People, since the beginning of time, have always tried to understand the universe through love.

God is your very being. So the first thing is, don't think about enlightenment as a goal.

I'm not too proud of the movies I made as a grownup except for 'That Hagen Girl', which nobody remembers but which gave me a chance to act.