Prostitution, black marketeering, and informing on ones neighbors and friends all had such a deep-rooted tradition in Romania that there was a charming naturalness and innocence about it.

Travel is like a good challenging book: It demands presentness-the ability to live completely in the moment.

What happened on September 11th is at least, theoretically, small stuff compared to what can happen.

If you look at the history of the U.S., we were an empire long before we were a nation.

It is a cliche these days to observe that the United States now possesses a global empire - different from Britain's and Rome's but an empire nonetheless.

The more dynamic the capitalistic expansion, the greater the disparity. It is from the disparity that we are going to get all the political upheaval for the next few years.

It is development, not poverty, that causes upheaval and terrorism.

Wherever you have weakening states and turmoil, you will have a fertile petri dish for terrorism.

It is time to understand the environment for what it is: the national security issue of the early twenty-first century.

What does the earth look like in the places where people commit atrocities? Is there a bad smell, a genius loci, something about the landscape that might incriminate?

The first thing to recognize not just about Afghanistan but about any poor undeveloped country is that as big as it looks on the map, it's much bigger when you're there.

Queen of arts and daughter of heaven.

History repeats itself, and that's one of the things that's wrong with history.

Hammond is insisting SG-1 needs a sociopolitical nerd to offset our overwhelming coolness.

As President Obama is inaugurated for a second time, the biggest political surprise is that gun control is now key to his political legacy.

You don't have to forget the past to start enjoying the present.

It's not differences that divide us. It's our judgments about each other that do.

Accept the gift and honor the giver.

Pakistan now is like a horror film franchise. You know, it's 'Friday the 13th, Episode 63: The Terrorist from Pakistan.' And each time we hear of Pakistan it's in that context.

TO preach a sermon or edit a newspaper were the two things in life which I always felt I could do with credit to myself and benefit to the world, if I only had the chance.

The truth is that cupidity, selfishness, envy, malice, lust, vindictiveness, are constant vices of human nature.