There is a convergence of crises that makes it challenging to keep the world's attention.

Silence in the face of atrocity is not neutrality; silence in the face of atrocity is acquiescence.

What is most needed in Darfur is an international peacekeeping and protection presence, and this is what the Sudanese government most wants to avoid.

Success is not about who never fails. It is about who can spring - or even stagger - back up.

Violence against women isn't cultural, it's criminal. Equality cannot come eventually, it's something we must fight for now.

Without investing in the rule of law for the poor, none of the other investments we make will be sustainable.

It is easy to get used to the morning news, habituated. But don't. The morning news is yours to alter.

My basic feeling about military intervention is that it should be a last resort, undertaken only to stave off large-scale bloodshed.

Foreign policy is an explicitly amoral enterprise.

I like to think that as I get older I'm getting better at spending time with people who have qualities that make them worth spending time with.

Historical hypocrites have themselves carried out the very human rights abuses that they suddenly decide warrant intervention elsewhere.

Style is a sacred fashion.

Soul mates may be linked, but fight to separate, causing wounds and confusion. They teach what no one else can.

Wit is the only wall Between us and the dark.

Howl’s voice was presently heard shouting weakly, “Help me, someone! I’m dying from neglect up here!

Humanitarian convictions are the linchpins of our salvation, and these an artist must champion.

It's more fun in a way to do ensemble scenes, where you know your background, you know the scene, but you can't prepare because someone else is going to say something that is going to lead you off

You have the 20th century wrapping up and everything is moving at this breakneck speed? And then, painting is still walking. It's just a very human activity that takes time.

I think one of the things you have to learn if you're going to create believable characters is never to make generalizations about groups of people.

For me a paragraph in a novel is a bit like a line in a poem. It has its own shape, its own music, its own integrity.

I always composed music as a little kid.