We're going in the wrong direction and I think the only way to counter that is to bring the story home in really concrete ways to people - in ways that kids can understand and non-scientists can understand.

The Arab awakening was like watching elephants fly: something you didn't expect, something you haven't seen before, "Wow, elephants fly."

Guantanamo Bay is the anti-Statue of Liberty.

It has always been my view that terrorism is not spawned by the poverty of money; it is spawned by the poverty of dignity. Humiliation is the most underestimated force in international relations and in human relations. It is when people or nations are humiliated that they really lash out and engage in extreme violence.

Once people get a taste for whatever you want to call it - economic independence, a better lifestyle, and a better life for their children - they grab on to that and don't want to give it up.

Our president's latest energy initiative was to go to Saudi Arabia and beg King Abdullah to give us a little relief on gasoline prices. I guess there was some justice in that. When you, the president, after 9/11, tell the country to go shopping instead of buckling down to break our addiction to oil, it ends with you, the president, shopping the world for discount gasoline.

The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist.