"It's very hard to get rich and famous at a young age and handle it well."

“For educated Americans like Joseph Ellis, Vietnam is a special hang-up. I am an Englishman of exactly the Vietnam generation, a couple of years younger than Ellis; indeed, for reasons too complicated to explain here, I was nearly drafted into the US army in 1965. I know many Americans of my own age and, as much to the point, my own class - journalists, publishers, lawyers. And I don't think I know one who served in Vietnam.”

Source : "Not so macho" by Geoffrey Wheatcroft, www.theguardian.com. June 22, 2001.

“Haitian diplomacy will be oriented toward the influx of foreign capital, direct investments that create jobs and stimulate economic growth.”

Source : "New Haitian minister of foreign affairs delivers first official speech". Laurent Lamothe's first official speech at his installation ceremony in Bois-Verna, Haiti, www.dominicavibes.dm. October 31, 2011.

“Would I be healed now if you gave me your blood, Nikolai?” “Are you asking me for it?” “If I were, would you give it to me?”

“If you don't have much going wrong in your life, then you don't have much going on in your life.”

“It is an admonition to myself when I am reading other people's books. Writing a book is very difficult to do, even a bad one. I try to remember that when reading someone else's work.”

“I think there are times when a song can be a spiritual experience - just making music, in general, is pretty much that.”

“Sociopaths love power. They love winning. If you take loving kindness out of the human brain, there's not much left except the will to win.”

“I believe that transatlantic relations are very important and that President Bush's visit to Brussels, in a few days, will have a major impact on that.”