Keep your blood clean, your body lean, and your mind sharp.

So many Americans, for one reason or another, they watch the news and it doesn't really give them the idea of the world. Or they don't read or travel. They have no idea that America is part of the world and not the world itself.

The tasks I set out for myself are what I do to beat the perfect pointlessness of life.

If I could go to Kabul and not die, I would go back to Afghanistan as soon as I could. And, that was the most interesting place that I've been to.

If I'm jetlagging, and I've missed some meals, and it gets to that point in a movie that you're supposed to cry, I'll let my defences down from around my inherent standing level of cynicism, and I'll cry.

A rose trapped inside a fist.

Before the Civil War, the Southern states were selling a lot of cotton to England and didn't seem to mind British occupation. By and large, the Revolutionary War wasn't at all great for business.