Life without oil, in fact, would be so different that it is frightening to contemplate. We are addicted, and it is no comfortable addiction.

If good history is dispassionate history, it must naturally wait until the passions of the period subside.

By pouring money and goods into devastated regions, foreign aid workers sometimes compound the disruption and debauch the survivors.

Saudi Arabia is a puritanical state that claims a monopoly of wisdom and virtue.

Financial crises are like fireworks: they illuminate the sky even as they go pop.

A century ago, petroleum - what we call oil - was just an obscure commodity; today it is almost as vital to human existence as water.

Since the attack on the United States on September 11 2001, and the US retaliation in Afghanistan and Iraq, there must be few people who have not felt a twinge of nostalgia for the cold war.

Economists, like royal children, are not punished for their errors.

Losing your capital is like losing your trousers. It is a real humiliation, and one not to be soon repeated.

Is there any purpose to translating poetry? A poem does not contain information of importance, like a signpost or a warning notice.

Because bankers measure their self-worth in money, and pay themselves a lot of it, they think they're fine fellows and don't need to explain themselves.

IN the book of my heart, pages keep falling out, many of them marked "Mom and Dad.

Besides great climates and lovely beaches, California and Greece share a fondness for dysfunctional politics and feckless budgeting.

Braininess is not attractive unless combined with some signs of elegance; class.

The exercise of freedom invariably results in some choices that are unwise or wrong. But, by living with the consequences of his foolish choices a man learns to choose more wisely next time.

A good scientific theory should be explicable to a barmaid.

Mind who you love. For that matter, mind how you are loved.

Writer is a miner; he works in the gloomy places like a miner to get the precious material.

What is needed in the world today is a Civil Rights Movement for the Soul, freeing humanity at last from the oppression of its belief in a violent, angry, and vindictive God.

Our life is a constant journey, from birth to death. The landscape changes, the people change, our needs change, but the train keeps moving. Life is the train, not the station.

I believe dance is a manifestation and celebration of the tenacity of the human spirit.