200 quotes found
"My dad was a Presbyterian minister. Yes, I am one of those dreaded P.K.s — Preacher's Kids. Be afraid. Be very afraid…"
"My favorite word is "redemption." I like both its meaning and the sound. My least favorite word is "maybe." "Maybe" is almost always a "no" drawn out in cruel fashion."
"I have an artificial left eye. I lost my real eye in a car accident when I was eighteen. In fact, I had to have my entire face rebuilt because I smashed it up pretty good. It took six years and thirteen surgeries. However, I did have the pleasure of freezing a plastic eyeball in an ice cube, putting it in a friend's drink, ("Eyeball in your highball?") and watching him freak completely. Okay, so maybe that's not going down on my good karma record. But it sure was fun."
"I'm related to Davy Crockett on my mom's side. Honest."
"I'm one of those people who has to write. If I don't write, I feel itchy and depressed and cranky. So everybody's glad when I write and stop complaining already."
"People always think they know other people, but they don’t. Not really. I mean, maybe they know things about them, like they won’t eat doughnuts or they like action movies or whatever. But they don’t know what their friends do in their rooms alone at night or what happened to them when they were kids or if they feel fucked up and sad for no reason at all."
"You’ve been assigned an identity since birth. Then you spend the rest of your life walking around in it to see if it really fits. You try on all these different selves and abandon just as many. But really it’s about dismantling all that false armor, getting down to what’s real."
"“Oh, hello," Dr. M says, shaking Balder's hand. "Wonderful costume. I'm a bit of a role player myself on the weekends. Tell me, where did you get the helmet?" "It was forged in the North, blessed by the hands of Odin, given to me by my mother, Frigg," Balder answers. "Lovely. I got mine on the Internet.”"
"Balder holds up a completely blank rune. Wyrd. The beginning and the end. Fate. I don't know what that means, but it's not doing anything to uncreep me."
"The dark does not weep for itself because there is no light. Rather, it accepts that it is the dark. It is said that even the gods must die." He winks. "But not without one hell of a fight.”"
"Marisol does a silly dance with Balder and the screw, one in each hand, so that nobody gets the idea that she takes tins — or anything else, for that matter — seriously. And just like that, something in the cosmos shifts. A butterfly flaps its wings in South America. Snow falls in Chicago. You give an idiot a stupid magic screw and it turns out to be a necessary part after all."
"In our travels, we have come across many equations — math for understanding the universe, for making music, for mapping stars, and also for tipping, which is important. Here is our favorite equation: Us plus Them equals All of Us. It is very simple math. Try it sometime. You probably won’t even need a pencil."
"These are hard times. The world hurts. We live in fear and forget to walk with hope. But hope has not forgotten you. So ask it to dinner. It's probably hungry and would appreciate the invitation."
"I was pretty sure you’d be weird. But now that I’ve met you, I can honestly say you’re even weirder."
"Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, my fellow delegates, to all those who dedicate themselves to the noble mission of this institution: Today, we call on Russia to stop its unprovoked, unjustified, unconscionable war. We call on Russia to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. We call on another neighbor of Ukraine, Belarus, who you just heard from, to stop supporting the war and stop allowing its territory to be used to facilitate this aggression. And today, we stand together in holding Russia accountable for its violations of international law, and to address the horrific human rights and humanitarian crisis unfolding before our very eyes."
"This is an extraordinary moment. For the first time in 40 years, the Security Council has convened an Emergency Special Session of the General Assembly. Forty years. Most of the men and women fighting in Ukraine were not even born the last time the United Nations came together in this way to unite for peace. And I would venture, that many of the people in this room were not born when that happened. But a few of the eldest Ukrainians and Russians might recall a moment like this. A moment when one aggressive European nation invaded another, without provocation, to claim the territory of its neighbor. A moment when a European dictator declared he would return his empire to its former glory. An invasion that caused a war so horrific that it spurred this organization into existence."
"Now, at more than any other point in recent history, the United Nations is being challenged. If the United Nations has any purpose, it is to prevent war, it is to condemn war, to stop war. That is our job here today. It is the job you were sent here to do – not just by your capitals, but by all of humanity."
"A lot has happened very quickly to bring us to this unique moment. It was barely a week ago when, in the dead of night, President Putin launched a full-scale invasion of our fellow UN Member State at the very moment – at the very moment – the Security Council was holding an urgent meeting attempting to foster diplomacy and de-escalation. As the Security Council discussed peace, Putin declared war. Ukraine has defended itself with great courage and vigor. As President Biden said in his State of the Union address last night, President Putin “met a wall of strength he never imagined. He met the Ukrainian people.” But the brazen and indiscriminate nature of Russia’s attacks has had devastating, horrific consequences for the entire country. Russia has bombed residential apartment buildings. It has bombed sacred burial grounds. It has shelled kindergartens and orphanages and hospitals. Russia has spurred mass hunger and caused so many to flee their homes – the latest UN estimates are marching toward a million people."
"People across the world have already united together in exactly the way this General Assembly must do today. Protests and vigils against Russia’s war, and in solidarity with Ukraine, marked with blue and yellow, have sprung up across the globe. These are protests for peace. From Bangkok to Budapest. From Berlin to Buenos Aires. From Sydney to Seoul. From Calgary to Cape Town. And even in Moscow and Minsk. People everywhere are standing up to call for President Putin to stop this attack."
"The Russian people are themselves asking how many lives Putin will sacrifice for his cynical ambitions. And they are appalled at the answer. To the Russian protesters, I say thank you – thank you – for your bravery. To the Russian soldiers sent to the front lines of an unjust, unnecessary war, I say: your leaders are lying to you. Do not commit war crimes. Do everything you can to put down your weapons and leave Ukraine. The truth is that this war was one man’s choice and one man alone: President Putin. It was his choice to force hundreds of thousands of people to stuff their lives into backpacks and flee the country. To send newborn babies into makeshift bomb shelters. To make children with cancer huddle in hospital basements, interrupting their treatment, essentially sentencing them to death. Those were President Putin’s choices. Now it’s time for us to make ours."
"“thumb|Slik skrev hun Michelle Obamas taler med Sarah Hurwitz moderator Hans Olav BrennerI wrote (Obama’s) first college graduation speech, which was at Arizona State University,” Hurwitz said. “In 2009, our economy was crashing … and he was kind of busy. We could get a meeting with him, but he was really distracted.”"
"Michelle Obama had “high technical standards” for her work and frequently adjusted her speeches to insert her own voice,"
"“Every transition had to be perfect,” she said of her experience working with the former First Lady. “A lot of the flow with a brilliant lawyer in mind had to be asking her, because she would just hone in on whatever was weak.”"
"“It’s really a pleasure to come here and to be able to share that mission, that volume (and) to share what it is that is so meaningful about those 4,000 years of wisdom in the Jewish tradition and how it’s affected my career and my life,”"
"“Being a really proud, open Jew at a time like this is incredibly important,” Hurwitz told The Daily Cardinal. “I'm really grateful to have the chance to be a proud, open public Jew on campuses and to hopefully inspire Jewish students and all students to really appreciate [their] Jewish classmates and to appreciate [the] Jewish tradition.”"
"“Everyone's like, ‘Oh, you're on a spiritual journey.’ I was not. It could have been a karate class or ceramics class,” “This was 4,000 years of wisdom on the human condition. What it means to be a good person, what it means to live a worthy life, what it means to find profound spiritual connection. I just felt like, ‘where has this been all my life?’”"
"“So many Jews in America have so many friends and family members in Israel, and it is really devastating and wrenching,”"
"it’s been “devastating” having to repeat throughout the day “that kidnapping toddlers and killing babies and raping women is not resistance" and to have to "again and again" condemn "the celebration of the death of civilians on any side of any conflict.""
"“[The] kind that says, ‘Look, we're not going to hurt Jews. We're not going to kill Jews. We just ask that Jews kind of change themselves to fit whatever we find acceptable,'”"
"“It’s just been a tremendously hard week,” Hurwitz said. “I think [of] so many Jews in America, so many friends and family members in Israel, and it’s just … really devastating and wrenching."
"And then I got hired on the Obama campaign and he won, which was a mind blowing new experience for me … And I got to go to the White House,”"
"You’re [the First Lady] there really to have a conversation with America, and to focus on issues being paramount,” Hurwtiz said. “I think Mrs. Obama’s [style] was also just much more operational, much more emotional. And that’s the kind of speaker and writer I am.”"
"“There were lots of intro ‘nuts and bolts books,’ which were fine,” Hurwitz said. “There were lots of very boring, esoteric academic books, which were less fine, and there was just nothing that spoke to someone like me who was like, ‘alright, I want the deepest, most transformational, most life changing wisdom, and I also need the basics’ and so I just thought maybe I can write a book like that.”"
"“When I was writing speeches for [Michelle] Obama, we were writing partners, right? It wasn’t me alone,” Hurwitz said. “She was giving me pretty much all the ideas … and suddenly writing a book — I was like, ‘Wow, just me’… It was very lonely.”"
"So when you have a Jewish law that says, if you loaned money to someone who was financially struggling, and you happen to see them coming down the street toward you, you should actually try not to run into them,” Hurwitz said. “Because you know what, if you know they’re still struggling, if they can’t pay you back? You’re gonna embarrass them, right?”"
"And so I think just getting used to beginning to understand how being a minority in a majority culture affects how they see themselves,” Hurwitz said about the purpose of her next book. “And how they see the traditions, and how we can begin to kind of peel away those layers and really engage authentically with our tradition in Jewish terms.”"
"“Speech writing is kind of a weird job,” Hurwitz said. “Right? You want to be a lawyer, you go to law school. You want to be a doctor, you go to med school. How do you get to be a speech writer? The answer for me was actually a lot of failure.”"
"“I made kind of an unusual White House career move: I went from the West Wing –– writing for the President –– to the East Wing –– writing for the first lady,” Hurwitz said. “I knew that I was a better fit for her voice. I just had a better feel for her. I was more interested in the subject she was talking about.”"
"“I think you can make arguments on all sides of the political spectrum using Jewish texts,” Hurwitz said. “I don’t think there is any one authentic Jewish position on immigration, poverty or healthcare. Conservatives can use the Torah and Jewish law, liberals can use Torah and Jewish law.”"
"“So often when people are preparing something they want to speak about, they want to know, ‘what can make me sound smart, or powerful, or funny? What does my audience want to hear?’” Hurwitz said. “These are all fine questions, but they should be your second or third question. Your first question should really be, ‘what is the deepest, most important, most helpful truth that I can tell?’”"
"“I don’t think I’m the only Jew who has viewed Judaism as if it were a distant relative whom I loved in a vague familial way and was required to see a few times a year but had no desire to get to know further,”"
"“What never fails to move and inspire me is her unshakable sense of right and wrong,” speechwriter Hurwitz says of her boss. “She has such a strong moral core and such a clear set of values, and she’s expressed that in pretty much every speech she’s given.”"
"“She was a proud Roosevelt Democrat, and as a young woman, she dreamed of going to law school and having a career in politics – but women didn’t really have those kinds of opportunities back then,”"
"“It never ceases to amaze me that just two generations later, I have walked through the Northwest Gate of the White House every day for the past eight years to get to work.”"
"“I start by talking with her, and she’ll lay out the points she wants to make. We work together during the editing process until it’s precisely what she wants to say,”"
"“Everyone there seemed to know each other from Jewish summer camp and be in on some inside joke to which I was not privy, and I couldn’t follow any of the prayers or rituals,”"
"“I signed up less to fulfill some existential longing and more to fill a couple of hours on a Wednesday night that would otherwise have been spent feeling lonely in my apartment,” she notes in “Here All Along.”"
"I fell in love with the texts,” Hurwitz told J. in a recent interview, explaining how a spark had been ignited. Her days of “pediatric Judaism”"
"“If someone has something of value” to add to her understanding, Hurwitz said, their religious or political affiliation matters little to her. She references scores of Jewish thought leaders throughout “Here All Along” as she charts her religious and spiritual journey."
"“It is very much a spiritual practice for me. A lot of joy has come from the basics,” she said. When she understands what a prayer means,"
"“The belief that every single one of us is created in the image of God has been cited as the defining Jewish idea,”"
"The most important lesson I’ve learned about speechwriting is very simple: Say something true. When people are thinking about giving a speech, they’re often thinking, “What will make me sound smart or interesting or witty or powerful?” Or they’re thinking, “What does the audience want to hear?” Those really shouldn’t be your first and most foundational questions. Your first question should be, “What is the deepest and most important truth that I can tell at this moment?” Whether you were giving a speech to 1,000 people or talking to your board or leading an informal meeting, it’s really important to say something that is clearly and glaringly true. I think that it makes people trust you. It makes them respect you. It shows your authenticity. I think it makes you credible and it’s a really good way to start. I’d say it’s also a good way to continue and end a speech."
"The defining truth about working with the first lady is this,”“She always knows what she wants to say—period.”“She has an unwavering sense of who she is and exactly what points she wants to make.”"
"“But I sat back and really started to think about it and realized that if … my real passion was government and politics, then I’d better do this,”"
"“For me, speechwriting is about telling the stories that too often just don’t get told,” Hurwitz said. “There’s a lot of quiet daily heroism in this country—people who get up every day and build lives driven by love, courage, and self-sacrifice.”"
"“I’m not sure what comes next,” she said. “For now, I’m just trying to enjoy every minute of this once-in-a-lifetime experience.”"
"There isn't really a university major in speech writing,"
"A lot of the time you are spending alone in your office, sitting at a computer, just trying to come up with the right words for the moment,"
"The line, 'When they go low, we go high.' That was her line. That was not my line. That was Mrs. Obama's line entirely,"
"I just typed it into the speech. That's one I'm very proud of.""
"If you wouldn't say something to one person don't say it to many people."
"A good rule of thumb is if you wouldn't say something to one person don't say it to many people. It actually doesn't get better,"
"In the political world it's all these slogans like, 'We need to put hard-working, middle-class-family values first,' or in business you get a lot of, 'We need to catalyze our platform to leverage transformational change.' You know, you never speak to your friend, your spouse, like this. That's not how normal people speak."
"“Mrs. Obama is … a fundamentally authentic, honest person. She doesn’t say something unless she truly believes it, and people respond to that,”"
"“I knew I wanted to work in politics somehow, but I had no idea where,” she said. “It’s hard to know what these jobs actually entail when you’re just a student.”"
"“Writing for Harkin — I just didn’t really know how to write a speech. I was sort of freelancing, just doing my best. But by the end of the year, I think they were really happy that I decided to go to law school,”"
"“He really helped me understand what makes a good speech,” said Hurwitz. “He really taught me the art of writing to be heard, as opposed to read, which I don’t think I quite understood.”"
"“I was so incredibly proud to work for Hillary. I love her. She’s been one of my heroes since I was a kid. But I also came to really respect and admire Obama, and so when she conceded I was really thrilled to be able to go work for him.”"
"“The speech always starts with her — sitting down with her and having her articulate what she wants to say, how she wants to say it, what her tone will be, what her message will be,” said Hurwitz. “That’s the heart of the speech.”"
"“I think a great speech is something that says something profoundly true, period. So often, people ask the wrong questions when they’re thinking about delivering a speech. They ask, ‘What will make me sound smart,’ ‘What will make me sound powerful,’ ‘What will make me sound funny,’ ‘What will make the audience like me?’”"
"“I want them to understand that success in politics is not about a well-ordered, linear series of successes … Nobody succeeds in politics that way,”"
"“People succeed in politics by taking risks, having failures, recovering from those failures, working really, really hard, being a good person, helping others and, over the years, collecting a real community of people … who will help you out when you’re struggling, and people you need to help out when they’re struggling,”"
"“Harvard students need to understand it’s OK to fail. That’s really a sign that you’re challenging yourself and growing.”"
"“I’m so interested and curious as to why you skipped over Donald Trump’s 298 trips to Mar-a-Lago that cost taxpayers $3.4m, and it all went back to his golf course,”"
"“My reaction is what a disappointment it is for the Trump campaign that they have to completely re-think about what their strategy has to be going into the final weeks of this,”"
"“Covid isn’t something that is inevitable for everyone, this a behavior-based, response for people taking necessary precautions, and the Biden campaign has done that, so had all the Democrats and everyone who’s volunteering so they just don’t have to navigate this particular obstacle like the Trump campaign does because they were negligent in how they were treating this very very deadly, very scary virus.”"
"“What I will say is that this is an obstacle that many people aren’t having to navigate because they are taking necessary precautions and I’m not sure that was necessarily reflected by the current administration and what a disappointment when we could be talking about the issues,”"
"What if instead of drowning in your self- hating thoughts, you spread them apart like cotton candy..."
"Lesson 1: You are a part of the universe, the universe is a part of you"
"How can we possibly feel oneness with the universe, if we aren't creating any inner space to really listen to what the universe is trying to tell us?"
"Let us get reacquainted with the miracle that is your breath: all the trees, flowers, and plants on this earth make it possible for you to breathe. All living things on this earth are breathing in and breathing out the same air that you are."
"There are no divisions in the universe, the universe is oneness, the universe just is"
"when we realize and truly embrace everything the is within us...that is when we can truly feel healed and whole again"
"we exist because of all the other living creatures the came before us"
"there are no separate waves in this ocean of energy"
"I think it’s this intention to pay attention to what you’re doing in your day-to-day life to take care of your home and body and health and really taking — not taking pride, but like how Marie Kondo says to thank your clothes when you’re giving them away, that spirit. I just like the idea of honoring these very mundane activities, whether it’s washing your dishes or decorating your office; because I think when you put care and intention into these activities, it infuses everything you do with this mindful sense of care, where things just feel more meaningful because you’re doing them for yourself. (2017)"
"When you feel like you have autonomy in everything in your life — what outfit you want to wear, or what flowers you want to buy for yourself, or what color area rug you want to put in your home — I feel like when you exercise making these choices for yourself, you just have more ownership of your life; and when you have more ownership of your life, you just make bolder choices for yourself that are going to improve the quality of your life in this really wonderful and intuitive way. I think when it comes down to it I want people to have joyful autonomy. (2017)"
"I feel like being a second-generation person of color born to immigrant parents, I really do think that sort of — however subconsciously — [does] play into my creative perspective on juggling dual realities, barriers in connecting with other people, just sort of having dual perspectives on reality. (2014)"
"A lot of people ask me — I get this all the time — 'Are you Buddhist? Are you Zen?' And my answer is always, 'I don't always necessarily identify myself with Buddhism, but the philosophy is something I'm always interested in and am very curious about learning more about.' So I am very influenced by Buddhist philosophies, Buddhist schools of thought. So much of it deals with being mindful, being fully aware of just a very subjective nature of reality, the illusion of reality, sort of the dichotomy of samsara or nirvana ... those are things that I do think about a lot, and I think it definitely, that interest reflects itself in the comics. (2014)"
"With comics, it’s always this interesting tug of war between what you can convey with words that can’t be conveyed with just image, and what you can convey with image that words can’t do justice to. So it’s always a combination of both when I come up with the stories because the two things are inseparable to me."
"That way of visualizing emotions, I feel like that came from that book I read that helped me meditate, A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle...And one thing he emphasizes over and over, which is also something that’s explored a lot in Buddhist philosophy, is that your true essence is completely separate from your thought process. So whatever verbal chatter is in your mind, you can be immersed in it, or you can actually see it as a third-person observer and sort of step back from the chaos of your thoughts and just think to yourself, “Oh, that’s an interesting response I’m having,” or “Oh, how interesting that I’m going through that mental battle again. I’m triggered to think these thoughts again.” And it’s, of course, easier said than done, but I feel like making these comics is a way of reminding myself that if I’m feeling sad or if I’m feeling anxious, I’m not the sadness, I’m not the anxiousness. I can step back from this bad energy or see it as a rainstorm or a bad streak of weather that will eventually go away."
"I never want my stories to be just sad or just happy. I always feel like the stories that I love, they’re never completely resolved. All the loose ends aren’t tied, but it’s that tension that makes me keep thinking about it. One ending that keeps coming to mind is the ending for Spirited Away, the Ghibli movie, where it’s a happy ending but also a sad ending, but there’s also this possibility of more things to come. I just feel like that’s the most accurate representation of life. Even if it’s an ending, new things are on the way. Or even if it is a happy ending, it might pass one day. I feel like ultimately, with characters, I want them to go through a journey or go through some sort of transformation of epiphany. So it’s more a matter of that than whether it’s happy or sad."
"when making art, it doesn’t exist in a vacuum—you need at least one audience member, and that’s sort of an extension of life itself too. You need at least two people. The quote I always go back to—I think Tony Kushner said this in the introduction to Angels in America—is “The smallest indivisible human unit is two people, not one.” That’s a quote that has always reverberated with me."
"I expected a lot more criticism when I wrote the book... I think everyone is beginning to see the kind of person Putin is. What he did in Ukraine crossed a line, and that really mobilized the media to portray him as what he really is. ...I never meant for this book to bring down Mr. Putin; its purpose is to be educational... It may... provide evidence, but I would really just like it to educate readers about Russia, about Putin's presidency, and politics."
"Putin operates a ""... that severely punishes disloyalty while allowing access to economic predation on a world-historic scale for the inner core of his elite."
"Yevgeniy Gontmakher... deputy director of Moscow’s Institute of World Economy and International Relations... "[T]here is no state in Russia. ...millions of ...bureaucrats work," but they do not perform the [state] function... "Instead of... implementing the course of a developing country, we have a ...private structure ...diverting profits...[T]here isn't even a pale copy of ...the formation of the state." The Parliament had become "...another department of ...Presidential Administration" ...with the ...legal system, and bureaucrats who thought they worked for the state ... [but] serve only the interests of ...[a] "monopolistic business structure which can do anything it likes" and ...controls "...50 percent of the economy.""
"Anton Surikov... former military intelligence specialist.. "...all Russian politicians are bandits from St. Petersburg." Surikov...was dead within several months of this 2009 interview."
"[A] rich... hybrid combination of Chekists, mobsters, and officials in bureaucratic positions of power existed throughout the USSR... Putin was at the nexus of these three worlds: ...[A] former ...employee, "Nikolay" ...claims ...he was approached by his superior ...1990 to be part of the following scheme:...a new clandestine structure ...Your personnel files will be removed ...No one will ...know your past. ...you will ...work for the Fatherland. Against those who want to destroy it. ...I worked ...cleaning up the archives of the . ...hundreds of [files] removed. Including ...Putin. After the failed coup of '91... as the chief financial officer ...on behalf of the KGB. ...Money ...and more money. ...in one offshore paradise or another. We... were moving millions and millions of dollars into bank vaults. ....along those same channels ...money from organized crime ...I would not be able to tell which monies belonged to the KGB and which to the mafia. In response to ...questions, they responded: just move the damn money. And I did."
"Bank Rossiya was not... just a vehicle for investment by... what would become Putin's circle. It was... one of the many places where this circle... collaborated with, Russian organized crime. ... concluded ...18.6 percent of the original shares in Bank Rossiya were owned by ...[companies affiliated with] mob boss Gennady Petrov (arrested by Spanish police in 2008 as head of the Tambov-Malyshev crime group)."
"Spanish... officials... having intercepted ..."hundreds" of phone calls ...about [Gennady Nikolaevich] Petrov's "immense power... political connections... [and] criminal activity in Russia ...directed from Spain....Troika mafia leaders invoked ...names of senior ...[Russian] officials to assure ...illicit deals would proceed ..." ...[I]n 1990 with the purchase ...of ...[a] Hotel in , Majorca ...with Leningrad Communist Party and funds ...Petrov was able to host ...notables, including ...mayor , Putin'’s boss. Reznik... and... wife... were co-owners of... companies with... Petrov and , also arrested on suspicion of , , and the establishment of a criminal structure that traded in , , and murder ...traced back to ...the monopoly ...given by the St. Petersburg government to the Tambov criminal organization in ...gasoline in the 1990s."
"The bank... united elites close to Putin... [and] became a vehicle for investment... [e.g. for] 51 percent control over SOGAZ... A report on corruption... claimed... Bank Rossiya... [paid] $58 million, despite... [a] value of $2 billion."
"Sergey Ivanov, Nikolay Patrushev, Aleksandr Grigor’yev, Vladimir Strzhelkovskiy, and were... contemporaries of Putin in the Leningrad in the 1980s. ...Patrushev and Ivanov... remained... closest to him. ...Strzhelkovskiy ...worked in the Leningrad ... In... 1990 he created... Neva ...[later] official travel agency of ...St. Petersburg ...Putin ...named Strzhelkovskiy deputy minister... of ...sports, and tourism, and after 2000... of economic development and trade... In 2008... [he] was named CEO of... ... world’s largest... and [producer]... [with] support... of Putin... [and] ....When he ...resigned in 2012 with a $100 million cash , the New York Times summarized... "...another data point in the shift of corporate wealth and influence away from the first generation ...oligarchs... toward ...former security service agents ...under... Putin.""
"[R]eports allege that after Putin became president, Tsepov continued... running... the ’s tribute system... "administrative resources"... provided to those who paid the largest tribute... Once... accepted... payments from... public funds were disbursed for the campaign. ...[G]overnors were chosen who responded to central interests irrespective "of ...promoting the welfare of the inhabitants of the region." ...Russkiy Kur’er wrote that ...a price list for promotion to governor ...included charges of $3 million to $5 million ..."
"Putin began his political career in St. Petersburg in... 1990, as advisor to... Mayor Anatoliy Sobchak, and later as the deputy... mayor... From... 1991, to... 1996, he was... chairman of the Committee for Foreign Liaison (KVS)... regulating, and licensing foreign investment in St. Petersburg and Russian investment... abroad... uniquely positioned to regulate... money, goods, and services into and out of Russia’s largest trading city... When Putin went to work for Sobchak, he immediately began to gather ...the core group ...who would work with him throughout the 1990s... into his presidency. They came from... the KGB, the Main Intelligence Directorate (...GRU), , and legal and business circles. ...[T]he inner core consisted of Dmitriy Medvedev, , , , , , , , Aleksey Miller, , and ."
"[Putin] was... in the 's active reserves until at least August 1991, and... initially... placed with Sobchak by the KGB... to monitor... emergence of democratic leaders... [F]oreigners who did business in Russia... universally reported... to get something done in the city, you worked through Putin, not Sobchak."
"... "...Putin’s political philosophy and favorite concepts—managed democracy, administrative vertical, dictatorship of law, a 'control' shot to the back of the head, etc.—are close to this group.""
"Gref and Kudrin appeared... drawn to Putin... because of his... liberal economic policies and... ability to... get things done in St. Petersburg... when most... were paralyzed by the "alegal" political situation and the total eruption of criminal activity at all levels."
"Shamalov... was hired by Putin in 1993. The conflict of interest was massive. Kolesnikov... described... [Dmitri] Gorelov... director of Petromed, ordering medical equipment; Shamalov... representative of , delivering the equipment... a good friend of Putin, with whom he went on to found... .... Kolesnikov said, "When Shamalov came to us with a proposal... we understood... this was... directly from Vladimir Vladimirovich." Gorelov believed that... Putin’s KVS... provided the "roof" to protect against... organized crime. When Vladimir Yakovlev became governor of St. Petersburg... the relationship... [with] Petromed... soured, and Gorelov and Kolesnikov bought... the city's stake... They became major shareholders in Bank Rossiya, purchased a stake in s, and by the mid-2000s were... in the ' Russia... richest Russians. Kolesnikov... ultimately became a whistleblower... [claiming] diversion of funds... to build ".""
"No action was more symbolic of the intention of the group around Putin... than the registration... 1996, of the Ozero Dacha Consumer Cooperative... establishing... Vladimir Smirnov as its leader. ...[O]ther members ...Nikolay Shamalov, Vladimir Putin, , Yuriy Koval'chuk, Viktor Myachin, ...Sergey ...and ...Andrey Fursenko. ...This group ...stayed by Putin throughout his ...period in office, and ...all made hundreds of millions and... billions of dollars. ...[A] cooperative... is a... way for Putin to avoid being given money directly, while enjoying... wealth shared among co-owners. ... Smirnov had long been "closely linked with the well-known 'mafia' businessman Vladimir Barsukov (Kumarin).""
"Smirnov met Putin in 1990 in Germany... He... headed one of the companies... in the [early 1990s] food scandal... millions being stolen; [beginning in 1994] he and Putin sat... on the board of the... SPAG... accused of laundering money for Russian and Columbian organized crime; and he signed over a monopoly position to the Petersburg Fuel Company, which he co-owned with Barsukov-Kumarin. ...Putin ...appointed Smirnov head of Tekhsnabeksport, one of the world’s largest suppliers of nuclear goods and services to foreign governments..."
"... in 2005 became head of . In... 2013 Putin announced... $43 billion... borrowed from Russia’s pension fund... to stimulate the economy, including $14 billion to build three infrastructure projects, two... by Russian Railways. The Russian free media... forecast... such... would... stimulate... corruption. ...Navalnyy ...criticized Yakunin’s entry to... Russia’s billionaires... as the head of a state-owned firm ...a salaried employee ..."In all other countries, the railways are used for movement, but we use them for stealing.""
"The Economist outlined the essential truths of the Putin era...The job of Russian law enforcers is to protect the interests of the state, personified by their... boss, against the people. ...[F]ormer (and not so former) members ...have gained huge political and ...since ...Putin came to office. ...[T]op ranks in the ...FSB ...describe themselves as the ...new nobility ...personally loyal to the monarch and entitled to an estate with people to serve ...As Russia’s former Procurator General ...said in front of ...Putin: "We are the people of the sovereign." Thus they do not see a redistribution of property from private hands into their own as theft but as their right."
"By 2013 the ' Russia list of the wealthiest businessmen in Russia was replete with friends of Putin."
"Putin’s relationship with his friends was... of reciprocity: ...supporting their raids on private businesses, providing ...no-bid state contracts ...allowing the courts to legalize their activities and criminalize those of ...opponents. In return ...they became the bulwark of his base ...helped finance and secure his electoral victories ... removed ...enemies... and... paid him . All... began in St. Petersburg in the early 1990s, when he started to promote ...s from ...Leningrad and ..."
"Vladimir S. Milov......[T]hese guys have benefited and made their fortunes through deals which involved state-controlled companies... operating under... direct control of government and the president... [C]ose friends of Putin... of relatively moderate means before Putin came to power all of a sudden turned out to be billionaires. ...[A]t the same time ...income disparity in Russia had never been worse, with the superrich doubling their wealth and the bottom fifth of the population in 2011 making only 55 percent of ...1991 earnings ...despite Putin’s electoral claims that his rule had brought prosperity ..."
"Putin's ...securing a monopoly position for select firms was a feature ...while deputy mayor. While he professed ...economic liberalization and private property, he ...acted to reduce competition ...and maximize profits for ...friends. In St. Petersburg, Åslund reported, "...Swedish and Finnish businessmen complained about Putin squeezing out their companies ...through ...lawless tax police, to the advantage of [friendly] companies ...""
"Putin... allegedly favored a takeover of the St. Petersburg port by the Tambov organized crime group."
"...Timchenko's company "was a beneficiary of a large export quota under a scandal-tainted oil-for-food scheme set up by Mr. Putin when he worked as head of the city administration’s foreign economic relations committee in 1991 ..." Timchenko and his colleagues were never prosecuted, and indeed he went on to establish ."
"2014... U.S. government’s sanctions... claimed a direct connection between Putin, Timchenko, and : "Timchenko’s activities in the energy sector have been directly linked to Putin. Putin has investments in Gunvor and may have access to Gunvor funds.""
"International, with Timchenko as co-owner... grew out of and benefited from the Russian state's dismantling of in 2003... gained control of... 5 percent of Russia’s total economic output and revenues of over $70 billion annually."
"After his electoral loss in 1996, Sobchak... charged... with corruption... had to flee the country... widely reported as masterminded by Putin. ...[G]etting Sobchak out... protected those, like Putin, about whom there was a lot of incriminating information. ...Sal'ye ..."Before, Putin was under Sobchak’s protection [under his roof], and now Sobchak was under Putin’s protection [krysha].""
"Sal'ye summed up the operation and Putin’s ambition... "...Cook up a legally defective contract ...take a license to the Customs Office... open the border... send the goods abroad... and put the money in your pocket. ...It was ...not put out to tender. They needed their 'partners'... of the shadow economy, criminal and mafia structures, front companies that could ensure this... . ...[H]is ...lamentations about the disappearing firms deserve nothing but contempt.""
"Putin... 1991... was made head of the supervisory council overseeing the... gambling industry in St. Petersburg. ...[H]ow did the city become a majority owner in... [that] gaming industry in St. Petersburg? ..."by relinquishing the right to collect rent for the facilities that the s occupied," the city could claim 51 percent ownership ...[E]stablishing a joint stock company called Neva Chance, which... went on to create over twenty-five different [gambling industry] companies ...many ...headed by ex-FSB officials ..."
"Baltik-Eskort operated openly as a private security service to protect Putin, Sobchak, and other[s]... It... allegedly acted as a liaison with the criminal underworld in St. Petersburg, including... Aleksandr Malyshev, reputed head of the Malyshev criminal organization, and , the reputed head of the Tambov crime organization. Some... employees were members of criminal groups and... accused of being involved in the assassinations of political figures..."
"Some... gambling companies were controlled by ex-KGB, and as such ...pushed hard to get the to submit to their authority. ...Several reputed members of the Tambov and Malyshev gangs became acquainted with Putin at this time. ...Reputed crime bosses who might not have easily received visas to Western countries now arrived as members of official cultural delegations and did their business abroad under ...protection of ...delegations."
"Putin will not go gentle into the night. ...[L]ess flexible and more bombastic in his public appearances ...those in his inner circle suggest that after the 2011–12 election demonstrations, there is ...fear. Gleb Pavlovskiy, his PR guru... believes that Putin will never leave power and ...hampered by the idea that Russians will always decide ...by violence. Pavlovskiy ...heard Putin say, "We ...know that as soon as we move aside, you will destroy us. ...you'll put us to the wall and execute us. And we don’t want to go to the wall.""
"[T]hese sanctions represented a public admission by the United States government of what it had known for over a decade... Putin has built a system based on massive predation not seen in Russia since the Tzars. Transparency International estimates $300 billion are paid every year in corruption. , according to official Russian Central Bank figures since 2005 have been $335 billion, and ... stated that Russia now has the highest income inequality of any country in the world."
"110 billionaires control 35% of the... wealth of this very wealthy country. ...[T]he median wealth in Russia ...(50% are richer, 50% are poorer) ...is ...$871. It is the lowest median wealth figure of any country. A country that is a net exporter of energy has a lower median wealth than India. It... scores below Nigeria in its ability to control corruption, and... its willingness to control corruption."
"The Putin system nationalizes the risk and privatizes the reward to loyalists."
"The pattern we see now of the redistribution of to the inner core, has been in place since the beginning, and even before . This is not a system in which robber barons create the industrial basis of a robust emerging capitalist economy. This is a system in which barons are robbed by value-detracting state raiding elites whose sole position is determined by their relationship to the current president. Value-detraction is an extremely important part of this picture."
"Most of the academic world... have spent the last 20 years focusing on democracy in Russia... but not on authoritarianism succeeding, and the basic conclusion... in this book is that Russia is not a system under Putin, of accidental autocrats."
"It is a system that was created with a purpose by intelligent design from the very beginning of the Putin regime. ...[E]ven the 2000 election was fraudulent. Putin would not have won in the first round without massive fraud."
"[F]rom the very beginning the Putin project was... all about guaranteeing to win."
"Gleb Pavlovsky... an extremely important member of the PR team around Putin in 2000, and who has fallen out with the ... stated (and I agree...) that "Putin was part of a very extensive, but politically invisible layer of people, who after the end of the 1980s, were looking for a revanche in connection with the collapse of the Soviet Union.""
"The argument of the book is that this group failed in 1991, but they succeeded in 2000. It's the same group, ideologically, not everybody, but ideologically."
"This group was seeking also to help themselves. They were a group of trained officers, very interested in economic liberalism, but with political control, and primarily liberalism for them[selves]."
"Seeing the collapse of communist rule in Eastern Europe after 1989, and the loss of the ruling status of communist parties... the [CPSU] authorized the ... to move money out of the Soviet Union, realizing that if the CPSU lost its ruling status... [i.e.,] access to the state budget without limit, they would need money to live in a . Something that the Polish, East German and Hungarian parties hadn't thought about."
"Money started to flood... in such amounts that they virtually bankrupt the Gorbachev regime first, and then when Yeltsin failed to find the Communist gold, they also significantly handicapped the ability of the Yeltsin regime to succeed."
"[T]his was CPSU money safeguarded by the , but when Yeltsin outlawed the CPSU, who did the money belong to? ...[T]o whoever knew what the bank account number was, and this started the scramble for offshore accounts. Kroll International was hired... by Gaidar and Yeltsin. They couldn't find the money."
"[T]he core of the book starts 1991... I regard it as the most conservative analysis possible, based on extensive interviews, of Putin's involvement in illicit activities in the 90s. His efforts to suppress legal cases... against him, and the rise to power of the group around him."
"What we know about this episode... It's there in the written source material. We just need to do the work of... bringing it to light. ...[T]he book is dedicated to free Russian journalism because it was Russian journalists who followed this story, first and foremost! ...[T]hey wrote this story when there was free journalism. They covered it extensively. They were on Putin's tale from the very beginning. They couldn't write this now, but they were writing it in the 1990s."
"The book contains major sections on Bank Rossiya, on the food scandel in Saint Petersburg in the early 90s, on Putin's involvement in the control and emergence of the gambling industry in Saint Petersburg, Putin's involvement as a member of the board of the St. Petersburg Real Estate Holding Company [St. Peterburg Immobilien und Beteiligungs AG]... registered in Germany... investigated by and B&D for its involvement in the laundering of money from the Cali Cartel, ...giving ...a monopoly position to the Tambov gang in the , ...creating and using... money from the mayor's contingency fund through... Twentieth Trust... and the unauthorized use of funds from the mayor's contingency fund in getting an apartment for himself in Saint Petersburg..."
"[I]t was a detailed account of the criminal activities that [Andrey Zykov] feels Putin was involved in—abuse of power... of his official position... relations with organized crime, knowledge about money laundering... a whole range of economic crimes."
"[I]nstead of seeing Russia as a democracy... failing, we need to see it as an authoritarian system... succeeding... [and] incapable of being democratic. They don’t want to be democrats. ...And if that’s correct, when did that start? And that... took me to the '90s... [T]hey were stealing from the... beginning."
"He was the linchpin. He controlled which foreign companies could register their offices and receive offices. ...[A]ll this property was Soviet property. The Soviet Union hadn't fallen yet. So how was a company... to get access to property to set up... in St. Petersburg? Putin would... assign it."
"[F]ly-by-night companies were set up. Many of his friends... still around today, were behind those companies. The goods went out, and incomplete or no shipment came back. So millions... were made just in that episode alone."
"[W]hat they saw in... [Putin] was that he had protected Sobchak. And as they said, "He didn't give up Sobchak, and he's not going to give us up.""
"They needed... situations in which, if they could postpone... elections entirely and make it more difficult for the opposition to focus on unimportant things, like the corruption of the Yeltsin family. ...So there was a real Yeltsin interest... also... a Putin interest because he wanted to be president. ...I think ...evidence that there was an FSB operation to place explosives in the apartment building in Ryazan is incontrovertible."
"[T]he system is... mutual support and tribute. It's a system. If you are on a list of possible people who might be approached to be a member of the ... you have to pay for your seat. Once you’re in... you can... charge businessmen to have line items in the budget. Same thing all across all sectors."
"[T]wo numbers is all we need. The median... wealth for the average Russian is $871, according to ... Median wealth in India, over a thousand dollars. The other number is 110... individuals own 35 percent of the wealth of Russia.... the most unequal country by far in the world."
"[Putin] doesn't back down."
"[Saint] Petersburg... was known as the "bandit's capital," and Putin was regarded by many as the link between organized crime and the mayor's office. ...[H]is activity was investigated by city and federal officials. All... squashed when he came to power."
"[A] trillion [dollars] has been subject to capital flight from Russia since 2005... primarily to Western banks."
"Russians seeking to move money to the West... can establish an LLC and purchase... [real estate] property without revealing... the actual owner..."
"Putin... believes ...[the West] can easily be manipulated through appealing to investors' and bankers' interests."
"[D]ocuments and newspaper articles that were once on Russian [websites] were scrubbed."
"I had published six books already with Cambridge."
"The and its supporters use the courts to scare off researchers who want to expose the corruption at the core of this regime."
"I also got a few reviews from people who said, "ok, so they're corrupt, but it's not a ." So... what do I mean by saying that... a political system is a kleptocracy?"
"I'm talking about a system in which risk is nationalized and reward is privatized. Only those loyal to Putin enjoy the benefits of this rule. ...It ...is not the case for many hundreds of thousands of small or medium-sized business owners in Russia who are subject to this... raiding by those above them... Property rights are secured by loyalty and not by law. They could take their claims to court, but those court decisions are political... and so the market... is hugely distorted by political considerations. There's no transparency."
"A lot is written now about the system now is 2.0. I yearn for the Politburo in trying to figure out what is going on in Russia. ...We don't know when decisions are made. There is no Alexandrov column in Pravda with... the criminological way of talking that allows... us... to understand what... direction the regime is going... There's huge lack of certainty... in the west and in the elite... about what is Putin's view on anything on any given day."
"is very important... It's a from the bottom to the absolute top... [[Loyalty|[L]oyalty]] and silence are demanded in return."
"[I]n... 89-91... the and the conservatives within the Central Committee saw what was happening in Poland, Hungary and... East Germany and became extremely frightened about the unreliability of Gorbachev to... secure their future. They worried that... the communists would have to run as one of many parties, and... be wiped out in the elections, as happened in Poland and Hungary... [T]hey started to move money abroad along established KGB channels... kept safe for the communist party in the event that it became an unfunded legally bound party... [I]nstead... after the 1991 coup the communist party was... outlawed. So... conflict and contention started amongst... KGB groups as to who had knowledge of where the money was."
"While we talked about the failure of the 1991 coup... the failure of the efforts by the conservatives to oust Gorbachev... it's a much more complex situation. ...[S]ome ...were quickly tried and put into jail, but for very short periods and very few people... even though this was a nation-wide conspiracy... 1991 failed as an incident, but the effort to return... preeminence... as a protector of the grand Russian idea... became part of the project of bringing Putin to power in 2000."
"So 91 failed but 2000 succeeded..."
"[T]his older generation of KGB generals... who were not in prison, put people in and got them prepared, and Putin was the one who rose to the top... That's my argument."
"So they laundered money. They kept it abroad, first for the CPSU and then for themselves."
"In the book I detail the many cases that I investigated in Saint Petersburg of Putin's involvement with illicit activities, illicit groups."
"My basic argument is... Putin, as deputy mayor of Saint Petersburg worked with the mafia to make their activities legal. He was in a position within the government to provide license and registrations... for items going out... and coming into the country. He sent, over his signature, Tambov mafia leaders as members of cultural delegations to Germany. ...[I]n Saint Petersburg ...White Nights was a mafia front ...[F]rom the very beginning there were people involved with cultural exchanges... gambling [etc.,]... very close to Putin who were using their position for [cross-border exchanges of] goods and services... [E]ven in 1991-92 that border wasn't open for people who had a criminal record. So he verified for their applications for visas that they had no criminal record."
"[D]elivers precisely the kind of meticulously researched evidence one would hope for in a work preceded by such controversy... [A]n important and valuable work because it provides the most exhaustive investigation into the patterns of Russian government corruption to date."
"Dawisha offers an account of Putin's rise... beginning with his stint with the ... in the 1980s. ...[S]he found that Russia's current struggles are... a product of careful planning by Putin's close-knit inner circle... that placed... individual economic interests above all else."
"Her 2014 book, Putin’s Kleptocracy – Who Owns Russia?, is a definitive account of how Russia’s president and his friends grabbed and consolidated power. Along the way they became among the richest people on the planet, and the beneficiaries of what Dawisha called "a kleptocratic system". Putin... knowingly took Russia down an autocratic path... head of a -like cabal... [that] looted the state and its natural resources. ...Karen was born in Colorado Springs in 1949. Her mother, Paula... was a school teacher and her father... a jazz musician. ...[H]er later work on Putin ...was written with clarity, moral passion and bravery, at a time when critics of Russia’s president were dying in murky ways. ...Dawisha initially believed Putin was stumbling towards democracy... until her research turned up ...multiple connections to organised crime. ...Putin’s Kleptocracy became a sort of bible for... investigative journalists looking at Putin’s money."
"When Karen Dawisha, Miami University political science professor and Director of the Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies, compiled five years of research into a... book, she had no idea it would become a bestseller and land her... on the acclaimed TV program Frontline. ...Putin's Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? ...according to Dawisha, "reads like a legal brief." ...Dawisha ...appeared on PBS's Frontline in ..."Putin's Way" ..."a complete hour on the subject of my book" ...[she said]."
"disabled peoples' movements seek to overturn the assertion that disability is pathological in health terms and a social problem in welfare terms. Disabled persons want to be citizens with human rights."
"The ADA and equal opportunity is a non-solution for a capitalist society wherein the disabled workers and would-be workers, by definition, do not have the social or political power to realize their economic wants. Power lies at production, with the owners of capital, and the Supreme Court is one manifestation of that power."
"There can be no democracy without economic democracy"
"Discounting the value of rights, the handicapitalists hold that in order for disabled people to be tolerated by our capitalist society, rights must be subsumed to the profit motive. Under this philosophy, social success will be ours when disabled persons gain status as consumers with enough buying power to command it. But where does the buying power reside; who really controls it and who benefits?"
"Rights, contrary to the handicapitalist opinion, are not "altruistic." Civil rights laws, though certainly not a complete remedy for the inequality described here, are an important element in the struggle in building oppressed groups' economic parity under capitalism."
"Disabled people (an eighth of the world population) remain the most impoverished, the least likely to rise above subsistence in every nation in the world. The wee middle class of disabled persons in the US does not exist in many countries. In the underdeveloped nations disabled people have no rights, no ADA. They can be found sleeping on sidewalks without wheelchairs, crutches, or other goods they need to live a life with dignity (not that we don't have this in the US, too). There are no curb cuts in Africa or Asia and very few in Western Europe. There are no accessible buses to provide transport to a job. Disabled people in the US only have what little we have now because we have struggled for our rights. Holding up yuppie lifestyle consumerism-handicapitalism-as a solution to disabled people" problems in the face of such reality is a terrible hoax."
"Let the market rule? Unless disabled people see ourselves as active creators of equality (which means undoing capitalism, which can never be made equitable) we will be doomed to be tools of the owning class, and our people, like other oppressed groups, will remain impoverished."
"I begin to understand that a white woman of the South can live and write, but not of the dead heroes. She can live and write a new kind of honor, the daily, conscious actions of women in true rebellion. ("Rebellion")"
"I understood finally that this heroic will to endure is still not the same as the will to change, the true rebellion. ("Rebellion")"
"It's important to deal directly with lesbian issues, whether or not one does that as an open lesbian teacher. It's important not to just shove lesbian issues to one side but to deal with them head on in the classroom, especially if one is teaching women's studies. The controversy right now is over a woman teacher bringing lesbian issues into the classroom. In another era you couldn't be a married woman and teach. It really is about what's acceptable to do as a woman occupying a position in an educational system that's supposed to be a replication of heterosexuality. Before you even start talking about what books you're going to use, you have to be ready to address that root premise."
"I don't think about my writing as being about fame. I think of it in a communal context. Yet it's naive and apolitical to deny that elements of privilege accrue to visibility. Certainly, a visibly lesbian artist is doing something that many lesbians can't do in their own work lives. That visibility is the result of community building, of something that is given to the lesbian artist from the lesbian community. When I think about these issues, it seems all the more reason to be scrupulous about how to return things to the community and to place my life in perspective. I've worked hard, but I certainly could not be doing this by myself. The other thing I know about power is what I've learned from Audre Lorde, who said that if we don't use our power, it will be turned against us. I think there is an important distinction between power over and power with. I'm interested in how we develop power with others. I think it's important that my having access to my own power in my writing doesn't mean draining it away from the community or using it in opposition to others but, rather, using my power collectively with others to build a transformative future."
"I wrote that poem ["All the Women Caught in Flaring Light"] because, at the time I was writing the book [Crime Against Nature], I would read at women's cultural spaces and lesbians would come up and tell me heartrending stories. I felt a responsibility to tell some of them. I guess it's what happens when you're a writer in a culture of repressed groups...I think the concept of writing or art as just self-expression or self-fulfillment is a Eurocentric and sterile patriarchal idea...Because it goes only one way. And it's not a way of conceiving of art that acknowledges that you are able to make art only because things come to you from your community. The image of the individualistic, egocentric artist-white, male, and heterosexual-is premised on him creating all by himself in defiance of his culture. But that's not how I have made my art, nor is it how most people in repressed cultures create. You make art only in the matrix of your community and you're pretty foolish if you don't think that that's true. Responsibility isn't a grim thing, you know, in that context. It's just what's real You are fed, and you feed."
"There were no women involved in health research."
"So, we’re making marks there. We’ve increased the funding for women’s health initiatives."
"So, I think through health and the fact that we are seeing effective (women) and the committees that we serve on, it’s made a great difference."
"Call me Marilyn."
"I did too."
"Take it easy on me, you know I’m not a politician."
"I’m learning."
"This is the kind of day I enjoy. One where we have helped people at every level."
"If you want to get anything done, you’d better have friends on both sides of the aisle."
"In 15+ years, we’ve expanded our focus and grown the business, helping countless organizations successfully grow and achieve long-term financial sustainability."
"I still believe there is a ton of value in getting a college degree. A college environment is so different from a real world work environment and most of us need that interim stage."
"Ultra-left and reactionary are often used as opposites, but extreme ideologies are never linear – they are circular. They all end up in the same place. Rigid. Sanctimonious. Intolerant."
"Some cultural anthropologists posit that Westerners do the right thing to avoid feeling guilty, and Asians do the right thing to avoid feeling shame. If correct, it would explain the deeply ingrained aversion to a loss of face among Chinese people, as shame, unlike guilt, implies the public knows about the act."
"China want desperately to be back in the center of the world. To that end, the leaders want and need something from all of you. The best way to get what they want is to give you what they think you want – to be first, to be special, to be individual. It costs them nothing to give that to you. China understands America better than we understand China."
"Feudalism? Sometimes it referred to the power of an all-mighty Emperor to distribute favors; sometimes it referred to peasants who had no land or power; sometimes it referred to a hierarchy of obligations and duties; sometimes it referred to the old thinking where women were subjugated to men."