If the Americans attack Iran for the first time in 1,400 years, we may unite Sunnis and Shias against us. So I guess there is room for accomplishment everywhere.

Sister Virginia used to say, 'You'll be known by the company you keep.'

It's not a choice between war and peace. It's a choice between war and endless war. It's not appeasement. I think it's better even to call it American self-interest.

A nuclear weapon of some dimension, whether it's actually a nuclear weapon, or a dirty bomb, or some kind of radiological device. Yes, I think it's probably a near thing.

We haven't done anything. That has devolved into a partisan bickering of the kind that says Nero was fiddling while Rome burned.

You just have to come to grips with the fact that people don't like to be invaded or bombed by anybody. And America has been engaged in that.

The war in Iraq - if Osama was a Christian - it's the Christmas present he never would have expected.

Most dramatically, and perhaps least noticed, is the violence inside Saudi Arabia itself.

I don't believe in inevitability. But I think it's pretty close to being inevitable...Yes, I think it's probably a near thing.

One of the problems of not allowing the American people to read what bin Laden has said is that in October 2001 just after the war began in Afghanistan, he gave a speech that had two parts to it.

I think we'll see it mostly in the United States. We're getting to the point where al Qaeda is ready to again attack us inside America. I think we're basically defenseless.

Our ancestors built temples for their gods. We build department stores.

Your creation are the outcome of your decisions.

Anger is the fuel of resentment which can burn for a lifetime.

Cosmopolitan critics, men who are the friends of every country save their own.

My favorite book is always the one I'm working on at the moment

In fact, in Europe, I'm more kind of this bloke what writes lots of stuff.

People drift from generation to generation, and the morally unthinkable becomes thinkable as the years move on.

To change criminal justice policy in any meaningful way means to propose changing a very longstanding system. It's not realistic to think you can do it overnight.

Democracy is a government where you can say what you think even if you don't think. Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge where there is no river.

Sometimes you get tempted to make something wonderful even better but in doing so you lose what was so wonderful to begin with.