“The leading figure in the American Cold War scholarship, a professor at Yale.”

Stability is when the U.K. and U.S. invade a country and impose the regime of their choice.

I stated that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are ‘among the most unspeakable crimes in history.

That’s why you have state secret laws. Citizens are not supposed to know what their government is doing to them.

By and large, I am opposed to those policies. As is most of the population.

The drones are a terrorist weapon; they not only kill targets but also terrorise other people.

So slavery, for example, or other forms of tyranny, are inherently monstrous. The individuals participating in them may be the nicest guys you can imagine.

You have to have obedience; otherwise, the idea can spread that you don’t have to listen to the orders, and it can spread to important places.

Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power. And concentration of political power gives rise to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle.

That’s all accurate and of some importance, but of far more importance is the fact that elections just don’t take place, not in any meaningful sense of the term ‘election.’

In Kosovo, the U.S. has chosen a course of action that escalates atrocities and violence.

Some may remember, if you have good memories, that there used to be a concept in Anglo-American law called a presumption of innocence, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Rational discussion is useful only when there is a significant base of shared assumptions.

Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.

The United States and Britain loved him. He was supported until the last minute.

What happened in the missile crisis in October 1962 has been prettified to make it look as if acts of courage and thoughtfulness abounded.

It could be – and it has been argued, in my view rather plausibly, though neuroscientists don’t like it – that neuroscience for the last couple hundred years has been on the wrong track.

There is no answer to the Pythagorean theorem. Well, there is an answer, but by the time you figure it out, I got 40 points, 10 rebounds and then we’re planning for the parade.

You cannot guess or measure the terrible endless longing to see the gates opened, and to be able to join the white figures within.

I rarely use mythology for its own sake because, as a theatre person, the mythological figures are in fact humanity to the ninth degree and Yoruba mythology in particular has fascination of being one of the most humanised mythologies in the world.

I like to sit on things and digest them and then I’ll figure out my next move, but I never said I was right for doing anything.

There is no more effective medicine to apply to feverish public sentiments than figures.

Chemistry is a class you take in high school or college, where you figure out two plus two is 10, or something.

Through seven figures come sensations for a man; there is hearing for sounds, sight for the visible, nostril for smell, tongue for pleasant or unpleasant tastes, mouth for speech, body for touch, passages outwards and inwards for hot or cold breath. Through these come knowledge or lack of it.

I wanted to take up guitar because playing piano is a little harder. Carrying a keyboard around is harder, and finding a real piano is much harder, and I wanted to play live more, so I figured a guitar would be easier to carry around.