There's no conflict between the social-welfare state and open markets.

We made a decision that monetary policy will be made by an independent European Central Bank.

We must take care that globalization does not become something people become afraid of.

The euro is a sickly premature infant, the result of an over-hasty monetary union.

I can't let important policy decisions hinge on the fact that an election is coming up every 90 days.

Take the military option off the table - we have already seen it doesn't work.

Any degree of unemployment worries me.

We want to change the way we help unemployed people find jobs. We want to be faster and more goal oriented.

We really believe our national interests are identical with European interests.

Our future begins on January 1 1999. The euro is Europe's key to the 21st century. The era of solo national fiscal and economic policy is over.

A market that's as open as possible is the precondition for a successful economy, and a successful economy is the precondition to being able to pay for social security.

Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune.

Maybe marriages are best in middle age. When all the nonsense falls away and you realize you have to love one another because you're going to die anyway.

I didn’t like how my body seemed to be intent on sabotaging my brain, especially since my brain was so good at sabotaging itself.

Enjoy TheSound Of Silence.

Never expect anything from a particular meditation. Once you have gotten started, different methods get you into the stream, let the meditation take you wherever it would like to.

I do not, like the Fundamentalists, believe that creation stopped six thousand years ago after a week of hard work. Creation is going on all the time.

Ideally, the writer needs no audience other than the few who understand that it is immodest and greedy to want more.

I saw Brahms's Hungarian Rhapsody on television when I was two. Tom and Jerry were playing it together. I thought, 'Hey, if a cat can play like that, why can't I?'

true love never says goodbye

You don't have to be a 'person of influence' to be influential. In fact, the most influential people in my life are probably not even aware of the things they've taught me.