Like all forms of collective security, multilateral sanctions require a unanimity rarely achieved in international politics.

There isn't any way for the people of Nicaragua to find out what's going on in Nicaragua.

Honduras was the original 'banana republic,' and its poverty remains extreme.

When freedom of the press is threatened, the United States should be leading efforts to protect it.

First impressions matter. Experts say we size up new people in somewhere between 30 seconds and two minutes.

The ransoming of captives has been practiced by Jews for many centuries and has been regarded as a greater obligation than charity for the poor.

Elections matter, but how much they matter depends entirely on how free, open and fair they are.

While Argentina, Brazil, and Chile - what in textbooks used to be called the ABC countries - seem settled into democratic politics and free market economics, the Andean countries are in disarray.

Iran exports about 2.2 million barrels a day.

At the United Nations, a lynch mob for Israel is always just a moment away.

While all Alawites fear vengeance against their entire community should Assad fall, there are varying degrees of loyalty to the Assads.

No one escapes from life alive.

With the grace of prayer, we shall prevail.

A great many people mistake opinions for thought.

You can involve yourself in electronics, computers, puzzles... there's a lot of creativity and brain working. There's a lot to model trains that people don't realize.

I've learned that I'm most powerful when I'm doing my art.

The light of consciousness has no mind to change or alter anything. There is no sense that anything needs to change, but it does change.

Love, I have discovered, does not judge. It just is.

My parents were screenwriters, and they had four daughters and we all write. So that's amazing. Talk about powerful parents. My mother always said to us, "Everything is copy."

In the Lotus Sutra, Buddha says to light up one corner - not the whole world. Just make it clear where you are.

The enemy is not fundamentalism; it is intolerance. In this case, the intolerance is perverse since it masquerades under the "liberal" rhetoric of "equal time." But mistake it not.