But nobody predicted anything of this magnitude in terms of resistance. And in part, the magnitude of the resistance was spurred by our failures in reconstruction.

But nobody predicted anything of this magnitude in terms of resistance. And in part, the magnitude of the resistance was spurred by our failures in reconstruction.

I don't like the idea of busing children all over the country. It's not safe. And there doesn't seem to be that much of an urgent need for it to be done.

Almost all Iraqis with any previous experience in the intelligence business are Sunni Arab, increasing the risk of penetration of the new intelligence apparatus by the insurgency.

Some of these bulls are gonna' spin those cowboys so fast, they'll look like a frog in a blender.

The whole purpose of those attacks was to drive those contractors out. Lots of them had to leave. They were terrified.

If they make the deadline because the Shiites and Kurds essentially rammed a draft through over Sunni Arab objections, there will be hell to pay.

In comparison with a loving human being, everything else is worthless.

That Mississippi sound, that Delta sound is in them old records. You can hear it all the way through.

The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity.

Imagination tends to be truly useful if accompanied by the power of mental control - if the worlds in one's head can be purposefully manipulated and distinguished from the real one outside it.

I'm coming out with a wine... I'm actually a restaurateur. I have Famous Famiglia Pizzeria that has opened up in the Sacramento airport. I'm also working with my business partner on opening up the Linnethia Lounge.

My mum says, 'Go with your first instinct,' but this can lead to impulse buying!

Some people lose sense of what their music was when their life starts to get better.

I have a mentor. I have... guides. I have a lot of guides. Not a lot, but people whose opinions I really respect and who I will turn to.

Freedom is no guarantee of anything. It is only defined today by what it is not. What it is takes forms strange and of infinite variety - bizarre as in a masquerade.

Ideologists of all kinds find a strange sort of comfort in the madness of the crowd; it confirms them in their suspicion that history, far from being made by the great mass of individuals - as Marx averred - is rather unmade by a single massive individual, a collective Other, who stands in stark contrast to you and he.

The bottom line is that Daesh's defeat requires not just hammering them on the battlefield but, simultaneously, revived political reconciliation with Sunnis.

Screenwriting and the movie stuff could all disappear tomorrow, but to sit down with my laptop and still tell stories is my day job. I didn't believe I'd actually get to do it for a living.

I think when you go to Hawaii, you'll notice the ambience, and you'll notice everyone is friendly because we all kind of think for each other.

Among the thousand-and-one faces whereby form chooses to reveal itself to us, the one that fascinates me more than any other, and continues to fascinate me, is the structure hidden in mathematical things.

I don't know much about auctions. I sometimes go to previews and see art sardined into ugly rooms. I've gawked at the gaudy prices, and gaped at well-clad crowds of happy white people conspicuously spending hundreds of millions of dollars.

You are not the troubles that happen to you. You are magnificence unfolding. Allow it to happen.

Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust? And, live we how we can, yet die we must.

No one has as much luck around the greens as one who practices a lot.

I had such a close relationship with my dog, and my dog so filled the need in my life to have children that I just wanted Cathy to have that experience.

It's really hard to compete with Apple on pure coolness, and if you do, you're probably going to use some of the things they pioneered.

To live is to be marked. To live is to change to acquire the words of a story and that is the only celebration we mortals really know.

Dance is a song of the body. Either of joy or pain.

I rarely cook traditional risotto, but I love other grains cooked similarly - barley, spelt or split wheat. I find they have more character than rice and absorb other flavours more wholeheartedly.

I have a real sense of optimism that we are revolutionizing the way we do politics in this country.