9g. verwoestingen door massavernietigingswapens en de betrokkenheid van burgers in de oorlog

4b. de opkomst van stedelijke burgerij en de toenemende zelfstandigheid van steden

4c. het begin van staatsvorming en centralisatie

5b. het burgerlijk bestuur en de stedelijke cultuur in Nederland

5c. de Opstand en het ontstaan van een onafhankelijke Nederlandse staat

6a. het streven van vorsten naar absolute macht

6b. de bijzondere plaats en de bloed van de Nederlandse Republiek

7a. rationeel optimisme en toepassing van verlicht denken

7a. het streven naar grondrechten en naar politieke invloed van de burgerij in de Franse en Bataafse revolutie

7b. ancien regime en verlicht absolutisme

7d. de democratische revoluties

8a. de industriële revolutie

8b. discussies over de sociale kwestie

8d. de opkomst van emancipatiebewegingen

8e. voortschrijdende democratisering

8f. de opkomst van politiek-maatschappelijke stromingen

9b. de totalitaire ideologieën communisme, fascisme en nationaalsocialisme

9c. de crisis van het wereldkapitalisme

9d. het voeren van 2 wereldoorlogen

9f. de Duitse bezetting van Nederland

10a. de verdeling van de wereld in twee ideologische blokken en de wapenwedloop

Never far from my thoughts are memories of being a little girl in Queens, N.Y., our family of five crowded in a small one-bedroom apartment, struggling to learn English and survive a new life in a new country, America. We humbly and gratefully still recall the kindnesses shown by strangers and neighbors who became new friends.

Maybe one of you can enlighten me, but I just don't understand why it is so hard to be kind to one another?

I love Brooke. Exploiting her was never my intention.

People strangely revere dance. They see it as another world, and dancers are somehow mysterious - just because they don't speak.

I've not as yet found one hobby that would absorb me completely when I'm not working, but I have just bought a new apartment and didn't quite bargain for the amount of effort and time and money that that absorbs.

Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works.

Change is inevitable. except from a vending machine.

Don't let people treat you like you're stupid. If it sounds too good to be true, it is.

I guess God made Boston on a wet Sunday.

The day a character becomes predictable is the day a writer should think about moving on - because the reader certainly will.

The Pulitzer is more useful than meaningful.

As a comic, you try something and if it works you go with it and grind it to death.

We've been around long enough and have been to enough award shows to know that it is easy to lose to Phil Collins at any time.

Elle MacPherson is absolutely amazing; she is just so beautiful.

It's an ill wind that blows no one any good

It takes a long time to build democracy, to build freedom.

I like to read Octavia E. Butler's 'Wild Seed' over and over again. And J. California Cooper's 'The Wake of the Wind.' That one makes me cry from joy. I'll mourn - I'll actually mourn - and then I'll cry from joy. She's wonderful.

If you want to be a writer, you write. Everybody wants to get published. You gotta play your long game.

My parents told me I'd point to a bed of flowers and say 'Pink. Pretty,' before I knew any other words.

If you're gonna tell your life story, you gotta be honest, or don't do it.

'Islamism' itself is such a broad and nearly meaningless word as used by the mainstream Western press, including everything from Turkey's AKP party to al Qaeda.

New Year's resolutions generally don't work for me. Or I don't work for them. I make them, like everyone else, but I can't think of one I have stuck to for more than 24 hours.

I prefer to stay poor.

I developed in my head that I'm never any better than my last concert or the last time I played, so it's like an audition each time. You get nervous just before going onstage. I still have that, but I think it's more like concern. You're concerned about the people - like meeting your in-laws for the first time.