The two world wars boosted American power and devastated potential rivals to an extent that could not have lasted more than a few decades.

I believe that if you go and ask a chief executive of a Goldman Sachs or a BP, and they answer you honestly they want monopolies, they want government subsidies, they want preferences - they're not interested in free markets.

I would rather people not smoke. I certainly appreciate the fact that smoking is not legal in restaurants and bars. That used to stop me from going out at night because you'd go someplace and your clothes would reek and you wouldn't enjoy the experience and that affects your rights. It's always a question. Whenever you are talking about these issues, it's not a question of restricting rights. It's a question of restricting whose rights, and providing for whose rights and that's a tricky balance.

I think graffiti is part of Berlin culture. You think about what the Berlin wall meant and how visible that was in everyone's life. How it was a part of their very identity.

In China, the state controls the corporations, whereas in the United States, the corporations control the state.

The government has to be on the side of the people if the corporations take too much power.

Whether it is gun control lobby, health care lobby, or abortion, pro-choice lobby, whatever it is, people are always trying to say that it is about restricting rights and they are never really prepared to talk about what the honest tradeoffs are. One of the things we need to do a better job of is actually painting those tradeoffs.