What an extraordinary time to be alive. We're the first people on our planet to have real choice: we can continue killing each other, wiping out other species, spoiling our nest. Yet on every continent a revolution in human dignity is emerging. It is re-knitting community and our ties to the earth. So we do have a choice. We can choose death; or we can choose life.

I never like to use those terms [like pessimistic].

I think that luxury has nothing to do with money, and everything to do with beauty.

After the journey around the world, writing Hope's Edge, I began to see that it is not possible to know what's possible - and therein lies our freedom.

[O]ur greatest contributions to the cause of freedom and development overseas is not what we do over there, but what we do right here at home.

My path has not been smooth. But the great thing about getting to be an elder is that you can look back and see the intense times of confusion and challenge, and see that if you keep walking through them, they can lead to times of great satisfaction and reward.

I think that fear of embarrassment is the essence of the human challenge.