When the big guys in Washington dream of transforming the world, it’s the little guys who come home in body bags.

Luck is the residue of good planning.

Retrospective analysis is not a useful guide to current problems.

I think Republicans so mistrust Barack Obama, that if Barack Obama says Putin is terrible, they will be some Republicans who just take the other side.

U.S. has been trying to encourage Iraq to pass a law that would provide money and training and weapons for a Sunni national guard that could be effective in places like Ramadi, like Mosul

Well, I think the U.S. has been careful not to go too far in attacking Iran's allies, in particular in attacking Hezbollah forces in Syria, which have been propping up the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

I believe, that there is at least de facto cooperation between United States and Iran, at least in Iraq.

Misdirection. False signals. Spreading confusion. This is the Tao of deception.

The ISI is above all a paramilitary organization. It doesn't do all that much collection of intelligence. It's not a very good spy agency, but it's good at running covert action.

Journalists couldn't do their jobs overseas without taking risks, and the same is true for diplomats and intelligence officers.

Sometimes James Bond movies drive me crazy. They're fun to watch, but they don't have anything to do at all with what intelligence officers really do.

The best friends are those you can argue with but love anyway.

It is important to ask ourselves, as citizens, whether a world power can provide global leadership on the basis of fear and anxiety.

I love the new legal immigrants they want their kids to be safe just like I do.

In the pun, two strings of thought are tangled into one acoustic knot.

To a right-winger, unions are awful. Why do right-wingers hate unions? Because collective bargaining is the power that a worker has against the corporation. Right-wingers hate that.

Be humble like Mary so that you can be holy like Jesus

Where religion speaks, reason has only a right to hear.

The whole problem with people is they don't know what matters and what doesn't.

I didn't leave physics because of boredom. I left it because other issues compelled me in a bigger way. And I always say to myself, "When I'm 60, I'd like to go back to what I interrupted."

I really do try to let the identity or voice inside come out.