The uniformity and obedience of the media, which any dictator would admire...

There is undoubtedly much to learn about the social uses of language, for communication or for other purposes. But at present there is not much in the way of a theory of sociolinguistics, of social uses of languages, as far as I am aware.

The Russian ambassador at the United Nations did make some proposals for a political settlement in which Bashar Assad would be slowly eased out. The West dismissed it immediately, and we don't know if it was real, because it didn't come from the Kremlin, and it was informal. But the point is every such proposal is immediately scotched. And you just don't know if they're real.

We must present a national persona of being irrational and vindictive, because that's going to terrify people. And then, they'll back off. And this is not [Donald] Trump, this is [Bill] Clinton. It's not [Richard] Nixon, you know. We have to be irrational and vindictive, because that's going to frighten people.

The missile defense component is a minor feature that nobody takes very seriously. Nobody really believes that the US is trying to protect itself from North Korea. That's not serious. But the militarization of space is quite serious.

What matters is the way we Americans think about ourselves. We think about ourselves as incapable of committing crimes. Everything we do, we make a lot of errors, you know, you can't help it. Mistakes all over the place, but out of naïveté or, you know, misplaced kindness or something like that.

[Ronald] Reagan bitterly hated unions and wanted them destroyed. This began with the air controllers' strike and went on from there.