In 1919, at the Paris Peace Conference, Japan had put forward a proposal to guarantee racial equality at the League of Nations, but Woodrow Wilson overturned it in the face of majority support.

Gandhi saw how people have to re-think their own individuality before engaging in political activity. Otherwise they're just playing the game that the adversary has set out.

In America, you don't even have proper holidays. It's really one of the most prosperous slave societies in history. People work their asses off all year long and get two weeks off! It's incredible.

The people who encouraged me weren't necessarily writers or readers themselves. They were people who were just pleased to see me devote my life to reading and writing.

I found it really disturbing to see a novelist writing a diatribe about Islam and Muslim radical extremists, blurring the distinction between the two.

The idea that human beings can make history, that is something quite unique to the modern West.

We need to infuse politics with ideas like compassion and empathy, and a sense that we live in an interdependent world.

The asymmetries of power that have shaped relations between the West and the rest of the world also exist in the realm of literary criticism.

Most suffering is human-made and avoidable. It's mostly in your head.

Freedom of speech doesn't guarantee great literature.

In the modern world, nationalism remains a very important force. We delude ourselves into thinking that globalization has made all of that redundant and that everyone just wants to be like America.

There is something so pure and frank and noble about him that to doubt his sincerity would be like doubting the brightness of the sun.

Basically, if you're not a utopianist, you're a schmuck.

Midterms are always hard. And the midterm in a two-term president's second term is especially hard.

You never take your fans for granted. You always appreciate them every show, night in, night out.

Forgive and forget, but never forget to forgive. You may find a happier heart is the key to a happier life.

As we give, so shall we receive. Service does not mean self-sacrifice. It means giving the needs of another person the same priority as our own.

I hope that by 2050 the entire solar system will have been explored and mapped by flotillas of tiny robotic craft.

I'm this overachiever type, I'll just work and work and I'll just do it over and over and over again.

Sometimes we get so busy pursuing our dream that we forget to notice the degree to which we're living it already.

We miss 100 percent of the sales we don’t ask for.