When a man is afraid and accedes to fear, he will always find arguments to justify his own surrender.

This scepticism is the same scepticism I heard a generation ago in the USSR when few thought that a democratic transformation behind the iron curtain was possible.

The central premise behind Oslo was that if Arafat were given enough legitimacy, territory, weapons and money, he would use his power to fight terror and make peace with Israel.

It is not surprising, then, that in the decade since Oslo began, Arafat used all the resources placed at his disposal to fan the flames of hatred against Israel.

In dictatorships you need courage to fight evil; in the free world you need courage to see evil.

Japan is not a Western democracy. The Japanese have kept their traditions, culture and heritage, but they have joined the community of free nations.

It is important to remember that some of the most serious thinkers once thought that democracy was not compatible with the cultures of Germany, Italy, Japan, Latin America and Russia.

Free societies are societies in which the right of dissent is protected.

As soon as people become a little less fearful, they will also begin demanding more freedom.

Non-democratic regimes always need to mobilize their people against external enemies in order to maintain internal stability.

Will dissent be permitted? The answer to that question will determine whether the society is a free society or a fear society.

I refuse to be put in a cage that gleams golden for many, but bronze for me. I would much rather be a dove in the sky, flying out into the open, into the sky, into the beyond.

Reverie is when ideas float in our mind without reflection or regard of the understanding.

Advent creates people, new people.

It is not by driving away our brother that we can be alone with God.

You can love your job, but your job will not love you back.

One has a prejudice wherever one fears a transformation.

I think a lot of the way that I try to write my stories come from watching my mom write plays and trying to do that.

I feel like I've been a Yankee my whole life.

If we don't somehow stem the tide of childhood obesity, we're going to have a huge problem.

The best way to learn is live, in person, cooking, feeling, smelling and tasting, but TV is the second-best thing to that; it's a halfway facsimile.