Partisan politics has no place in the classroom.

If you put your politicians up for sale, as the US does (alone in this among industrialized democracies), then someone will buy them--and it won’t be you; you can’t afford them.

I argued that the Bush administration, and the Coalition officials more recently, didn't understand Iraqi society. They thought it was a blank slate, that they could use Iraqis as guinea pigs.

Administering another country is always a very tricky proposition.

My main expertise is in the past, but if I have to extrapolate into the future, I would say: no good news any time soon and an obvious exit strategy is not apparent to me.

I don't accept the argument of people like David Horowitz that the government should impose some sort of predetermined political balance on academic research.

It's not proper for a professor to go before a class and promote one party or another. That's not academic scholarship.

Public interest in most of the Middle East was slight at that time; the Arab-Israeli conflict was all that people were interested in and that was not my specialty.

I also argued before the war that the administration was underestimating Arab nationalism and Iraqi nationalism, that it was not going to be as easy to rule Iraq as they thought.

I think it's really unfortunate that academics have been sidelined in most important policy debates.

An occupying power has no right to make significant alterations in the character of the occupied society, to change the laws all around, without a strong security reason and so forth.

Travel is wishing for one more bite of whatever that just was.

the difference between secret andlie is similar to the difference of iceand water.when you heat ice it becomes water.and when you force anyone toreveal there secrets it comes in aform of lie.

One key to creating a meaningful life, is choosing what we want to feel, and for how long.

People can get accustomed to anything, right? Habit does things to people.

Acting is something I love to do. I love to perform and I love the art, the craft of it

Art is the imagination at play in the field of time. Let yourself play.

Sports, music, movies - basically, fans of any form of entertainment don't do a resume analysis before picking their favorite.

But Marge, what if we chose the wrong religion? Each week we just make God madder and madder.

I have to wear heels. There are some things that you just have to do.

It is the role of the poet to look at what is happening in the world and to know that quite other things are happening.