The salt of any interesting civilization is mixture.

I claim the right to take a stand once in a while.

My job is to look at what politics is doing, not be a politician myself.

Literature is my life of course, but from an ontological point of view. From an existential point of view, I like being a teacher.

An intellectual is going to have doubts, for example, about a fundamentalist religious doctrine that admits no doubt, about an imposed political system that allows no doubt, about a perfect aesthetic that has no room for doubt.

But I don't think I have any particular talent for prediction, because when you have three or four elements in hand, you don't have to be a genius to reach certain conclusions.

There are some fundamental values it's impossible to be wrong about.