The British press has an insatiable appetite for making public things that should be private. It's a prurience that I've never understood.

The ascent of money has been essential to the ascent of man.

To make a living space, there first had to be a killing space.

The rise of the West is, quite simply, the pre-eminent historical phenomenon of the second half of the second millennium after Christ.

It’s our generation that is witnessing the end of Western predominance. The average American used to be more than 20 times richer than the average Chinese. Now it’s just five times, and soon it will be 2.5 times.

Oral history is a recipe for complete misrepresentation because almost no one tells the truth, even when they intend to.

I think that it is important to be gregarious, and that friendships are not just a leisure pursuit, that they are an integral part of what it is to be human, and one does better work if one has a circle of friends that is active.