There's a sense of desperation in Afghanistan because of the lack of funding and the fact that the U.S. only has a one-track military strategy. It doesn't have an economic and political game plan.

We should remember that the Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. Of course, many of them did support the Taliban. But you cannot equate all Pashtuns with the Taliban.

The key to breaking the Taliban taboo against women and the cultural brainwashing that the Taliban imposed upon many Afghans is to get women back into the workforce.

I think within a year or so, perhaps, if 9/11 had not happened, in Afghanistan would have been a very broad-based general uprising against the Taliban.

The idea of a permanent U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, as opposed to an economic presence, is going to create a new wave of hostility toward the United States.

[Mullah Omar] gave himself this religious title. So it was something that all those people there who swore an oath of loyalty to him as a religious leader could not easily get rid of.

Failures can be called ‘strengtheners’ as they make you determined to reach your goal with the lessons they teach.

We're on a planet. At the same time. In the Universe ... Let's do something Great Together!

Any pilot can describe the mechanics of flying. What it can do for the spirit of man is beyond description.

Art is not a mirror. Art is a hammer.

The art of putting the right men in the right places is first in the science of government; but that of finding places for the discontented is the most difficult.

O people who take pleasure in a life that will vanish, falling in love with a fading shadow is sheer stupidity

I’m a serious-minded and intense little devil – terribly gauche and so tense that I don’t see how people can stay in the same room as me. I know I couldn’t tolerate myself.

Nobody gets to name you. You are not forgettable. You are not replaceable. You are not your pain. You are sacred and special and alive.

There's no such thing as a genius in politics, or at least I have never met one. There are only human beings, some better than others, who rise or fall on the challenges they meet.

The most powerful symptom of love is a tenderness which becomes at times almost insupportable.