The communists basically acted as the police force of the security system of the [Spain] Republic and were very much opposed to the anarchists, partially because [Joseph] Stalin still hoped at that time to have some kind of pact with Western countries against [Adolf] Hitler. That, of course, failed and Stalin withdrew the support to the Republic. They even withdrew the Spanish gold reserves.

You ought to teach kids that elections take place but that's not politics. If you want to know how legislation is made it doesn't come from elections.

There is either a crisis or a return to the norm of stagnation. One view is the norm is stagnation and occasionally you get out of it. The other is that the norm is growth and occasionally you can get into stagnation. You can debate that but it's a period of close to global stagnation.

It is a virtual reflex for governments to plead security concerns when they undertake any controversial action, often as a pretext for something else.

Very commonly substances are criminalized because they're associated with what's called the dangerous classes, you know, poor people, or working people.... Actually, the peak of marijuana use was as I said, in the seventies, but that was rich kids, so you don't throw them in jail. And then it got seriously criminalized, you know, you really throw people in jail for it, when it was poor people.

How do I define God? I don't.... People who find such conceptions important for themselves have every right to frame them as they like. Personally, I don't.

I think that as human beings, we quite naturally take for granted what is similar among human beings and, then, pay attention to what differentiates us. That makes perfect sense for us as human beings.