“I think that would have been useful and it would have helped to some extent.”

They don’t seem to be able to rise above these things.

I think the Shiites want a theocracy.

Everybody seems to be imprisoned in their own sectarian or political affiliations.

I think people are rapidly losing confidence in the political class, and I don’t blame them.

This country won’t be able to function properly.

If the security forces continue to be dominated as they are now by political groups or sects

This contest between the secular and religious visions of government is really the main choice to be made

Until and unless we could disband these militias

Then the people won’t trust in them – and the result will be civil war or fragmentation of the country.

An apology for the actions of some troops who, of course, are not representative of the majority of the armed forces here,

It won’t be decided in one election, but it is a basic choice between an open and progressive Iraq and one that is backward and continues to fall behind.

It won’t be a question of how well-trained or well-equipped the army is but one of the authority it serves.

To the extent that President Trump means strengthened border security, I am fully in favor of the idea that the rule of the law, secure borders and public safety should prevail. Drugs should not enter illegally.

I dont think just scaring people is enough. That worked during the freeze days to a major extent, but we really didnt achieve that much even at that time.

So, half a dozen of us tried – not all of us in history – and we all eventually got in. So, to that extent, it [The History Boys] comes out of my own experience.

The highest measure of democracy is neither the ‘extent of freedom’ nor the ‘extent of equality’, but rather the highest measure of participation.

I thought it was time to show some of it, to show some of my feelings about things and what I preferred at the time. I prefer them still but not to the extent I did at the time.

The religions of the world must be assessed, not on the basis of their convoluted theologies, but in terms of the extent to which they serve as forces of liberation and empowerment.

Writers matter in a society to the extent that we can help that society hear its unvoiced longing, encounter its erased and disregarded selves, break with complacency, numbness, despair.

Or maybe we’re all self-conscious to an extent.