I was paid to read Western economic texts. In a way, the regime paid for their own undermining.

People like me who were engaging in brinkmanship with the party economic bosses and the open dissidents who were being arrested were pursuing a common goal in different ways.

By the time I returned to Czechoslovakia, I had an understanding of the principles of the market.

That means following a very restrictive fiscal and monetary policy which will squeeze the monopolies and cut their subsidies. On the micro level we will allow other economic agents, both domestic and foreign, to compete with them.

The events in the square, of course, made a deep impression on me and many other parents.

We must have the time to create strict rules so that property is not sold by Communist managers for a low price. They often get payments under the table to sell to the first bidder. This does not build public support for a market economy.

Nevertheless, there is another threat on the horizon. I see this threat in environmentalism which is becoming a new dominant ideology, if not a religion. Its main weapon is raising the alarm and predicting the human life endangering climate change based on man-made global warming.

I never intended to be a politician or office-seeker.

It is what makes the reform process an art, not just a science. You have to develop a strategy that tells you what reform measures you should follow and in what sequence.

Then in 1969, I spent the spring term at Cornell University in New York. The invasion of August 1968 had already happened, but the hardline regime took several months to crack down on dissidents.

To pursue a so-called Third Way is foolish. We had our experience with this in the 1960s when we looked for a socialism with a human face. It did not work, and we must be explicit that we are not aiming for a more efficient version of a system that has failed.

We will also allow state companies to sell shares to their workers and will pass a law allowing citizens to start companies of their own with no limits on the number of employees or on the firm's output.

Privatization of the state-owned economy is not yet on the agenda. We cannot do it immediately; my colleagues would not agree to it. But we must put all forms of ownership on an equal footing immediately and let different types of ownership compete with the state firms.

What we want is to establish the rules of a market economy - not to plan its outcome.

I was paid to read Western economic texts. In a way, the regime paid for their own undermining.

We served on the editorial board of a literary monthly called Face in 1968 and 1969. He was a young writer, and I was also interested in broad cultural issues. We agreed on all major issues and became friends.

To talk about planning an economic system is to talk in old terms, and I find myself sometimes having to teach Westers about what the market really means.

I also helped write the five-page statement of principles that Civic Forum issued in late November. That was the first public expression of what the new government wanted to do.

I do not consider the Lisbon Treaty to be a good thing for Europe, for the freedom of Europe, or for the Czech Republic.

I live in Europe and care about democracy and sovereignty of nation states there.

I'm absolutely convinced that the very small global warming we are experiencing is the result of natural causes. It's a cyclical phenomenon in the history of the Earth. The role of man is very small, almost negligible.

It is obvious that the monetary union among 17 very different European countries does not work. As an economist, I know that the Eurozone is not an optimum currency area, as defined in economic theory.

The attempts to command the climate and decide about the temperature on our planet are wrong and arrogant. I wrote a book about it which was published in English under the title 'Blue Planet in Green Shackles.'

Those of us who lived under communism for most of our lives were looking toward the Western world because of its values, emphasis on democracy, individual liberties and freedom, and economic prosperity.

It was really fun. It was fun for a lot of reasons. It was fun because nobody thought that we would be successful. It was on a network that wasn't even there at the time.

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched they must be felt with the heart.

I'm a football guy at heart; maybe I should have played football for a living instead, because I play a lot of football videogames; I'm really into them.

I don't want to live in a world where I could say to my daughter, 'There used to be turtles that swam in the ocean.'

If you can, anticipate that life is going to be full of detours.

A bargain ain't a bargain unless it's something you need.

Coming from a family where the parents had been together for 40 years, you never imagine that divorce is going to happen to you.

Basically I was a rebel growing up. I got kicked out of six schools. But I don't think that it makes you less of an intellect. You know, if you ever crave knowledge, there's always a library.

Historically, the Justice Department has been Congress' ally in fighting wrongdoing in government, but under this Justice Department and Eric Holder, rather than being the people's attorney, Eric Holder sees himself as the president's attorney and he'll do anything to defend the president.

I've done the same thing in the world of business that winners do in the game. I watch them, admire them.

I invite you to entertain some new beliefs about dolphins that these Cetacea with huge brains are more intelligent than any man or woman..

I had piano lessons when I was younger, but I quit because I didn't want to sit and learn the scales.

I love working out how things are made, which is why I have so many models of towers.

What's upsetting about an autobiography is that the final chapter is always missing. I mean, you want the death, don't you?

Golds father is dirt yet it regards itself as noble.

The surest way to get a thing in this life is to be prepared for doing without it, to the exclusion even of hope.

You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

My father once told me that I have a mind like a lint trap - I pull stuff out of everything, and a lot of it just clings.

It is the unbroken testimony of all history that alcoholic liquors have been used by the strongest, wisest, handsomest, and in every way best races of all times.

We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account.

Witchcraft is the art of the Fallen Angels, the Watchers and the Children of Cain. It is the art of encircling the shadows of darkness and light to serve your will and create through your own being.

The planner is a potential dictator who wants to deprive all other people of the power to plan and act according to their own plans. He aims at one thing only: the exclusive absolute preeminence of his own plan.

Truth is a thing immortal and perpetual, and it gives to us a beauty that fades not away in time.

Dear me, one day I'll make you proud.