The United States will remain the most powerful nation on Earth for the next 10, 15 years, but the context in which she holds her power has now radically altered.

In the modern age where everything is connected to everything, the most important thing about what you can do is what you can do with others.

The generous way of putting it is that we were not ready for this. The less generous way is to say: How was it possible to return to the politics of appeasement of the 1930s?

The greatest failure is that although we have created institutions, we have not created a civil society.

Truth and reconciliation' are always combined, but I would split them: I don't think Bosnia is ready for reconciliation, but I do think it is ready for truth.

The advent of interconnectedness and of weapons of mass destruction means that, increasingly, I share a destiny with my enemy.

There can be no place in a 21st-century parliament for people with 15th-century titles upholding 19th-century prejudices.

I've had much nastier things said about me in the British press than in the Bosnian press.

Politics is compromise.

I can create institutions, but I can't rewrite the chips in people's heads.

I am formally accountable to the steering board of the PIC, and I meet with nine ambassadors from the PIC every week. I have to have the capitals' broad agreement with what I do.

All he did was breathe life into my soul. I was a conquest. An easy one, and you don't know how badly it hurts to know that I was used and tried for a time. Then thrown back.

Internal character: how you behave when no one is watching.

Even though it's dark and cold there is always a shade of light.

In L.A., it's very hard to have some kind of conscience of some style out there. The weather's too hot; there's no seasons.

I could not work for a long time. I don't spend very much money. Basically I spend money on food and DVDs.

I laugh when I end up on the worst-dressed lists. I'm not trying to be fashionable. I know I'm kind of a cartoon character. Do people honestly think I'm wearing a kafkan in order to be fashionable?

When I'm in the studio I often hunger for the road. And when away I long for the efficiency of the studio.

As a building is resistant to forces acting upon it, a person must be equally tenacious in life.

Failure is built into creativity... the creative act involves this element of 'newness' and 'experimentalism,' then one must expect and accept the possibility of failure.

I realized that everyone in Western society, in some weird way, believes that they've had the experience of producing feature films.