Brittle masculinity, in the right setting, becomes political atrocity. Strength brings problems; weakness brings others, but weakness posing as strength is the most dangerous of all.

Anticipatory obedience is a political tragedy.

Other forces were at work besides conformism. But without the conformists, the great atrocities would have been impossible.

Life is political, not because the world cares about how you feel, but because the world reacts to what you do. The minor choices we make are a kind of vote, making it more or less likely that free and fair elections will be held in the future. In the politics of the everyday, our words and gestures, or their absence, count very much.

The dollar's strength and the bond market's weakness right now is changing the way people are seeing things, ... It's telling us that interest rates are likely to rise and that commodity prices are likely to come down.

It wasn’t that Nell was weak. It was that the world was dangerous.