It is development, not poverty, that causes upheaval and terrorism.

While the foreign policy elite in Washington focuses on the 8,000 deaths in a conflict in Syria – half a world away from the United States – more than 47,000 people have died in drug-related violence since 2006 in Mexico. A deeply troubled state as well as a demographic and economic giant on the United States’ southern border, Mexico will affect America’s destiny in coming decades more than any state or combination of states in the Middle East.

The masses cannot ultimately be free: only the individual can be.

Americans are opting out of public venues like the playground and the sidewalk for private venues like the healthclub and the mall. We're living our lives inside one form of corporation or another.

Travel is like a good challenging book: It demands presentness-the ability to live completely in the moment.

The Cold War went on for so long that it bred a kind of worldwide military establishment. Even when budgets went down in the early and mid-nineties, it didn't really affect it.

Wherever you have weakening states and turmoil, you will have a fertile petri dish for terrorism.