“Do you believe in an open society? Then act in the open. Do you believe in a decent and humane society? Then behave decently and humanely.”

Poland is an ally of the United States of America. It was our duty to show that we are a reliable, loyal, and predictable ally.

Start doing the things you think should be done, and start being what you think society should become.

As a rule, dictatorships guarantee safe streets and terror of the doorbell. In democracy the streets may be unsafe after dark, but the most likely visitor in the early hours will be the milkman.

Demagoguery and populism are rampant. We are the illegitimate children, the bastards of communism. It shaped our mentality.

There were free elections in Bulgaria, where the opposition has just won.

I believe that a man can only be useful to his country when he can look at it clearly.

Both men have an authoritarian idea of government; democracy is merely a façade.

I think it’s always dangerous to make political arguments in a religiously ideological way. And it’s very dangerous to treat as traitors to the American nation those who think differently.

The real struggle for us is for the citizen to cease to be the property of the state.

Even though we are not sure of the links, Iraq was one of the countries that did not lower its flags in mourning on 9/11.

After the French Revolution, it was not the treason of the king that was in question; it was the existence of the king. You have to be very careful when you judge and execute somebody for being a symbol.

I consider that 9/11 was the day when war was started against my own work and against myself.

We lack a political culture, a culture of compromise. We in Poland, as well as the Hungarians, have never learned this sort of thing.

France can never accept that it is no longer a dominating power in the world of culture. This is true both of the French right and the French left. They keep thinking that Americans are primitive cowboys or farmers who do not understand anything.

They want a gradual coup. If Orbán stayed in power in Hungary or if Kaczynski were to win an election in our country, it would be dangerous.

I think you can be an enemy of Saddam Hussein even if Donald Rumsfeld is also an enemy of Saddam Hussein.

No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader’s intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.