If necessity is the mother of invention, discontent is the father of progress.

I owe much to mother. She had an expert's understanding, but also approached art emotionally.

The Japanese banks are not having an easy time as they once had.

Populists and isolationists ignore the tangible benefits that have resulted from our active international role during the past half-century.

I am a passionate traveler, and from the time I was a child, travel formed me as much as my formal education. In order to appreciate cultures of another nation, one needs to go there, know the people and mingle with the culture of that country. One way to do that, if one is lucky enough, is to buy things from those cultures.

The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.

The attacks on the World Trade Center and the current economic recession, which is particularly powerful in New York City, have put a number of building plans on hold for the time being.