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I would sooner want a strong partnership with the United States – even with (US President George W.) Bush, who I think is the worst president in a long, long time. I would sooner want a friendship with Bush than with (Russian President Vladimir) Putin.

Bernard-Henri Levy

God is dead but my hair is perfect.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Dead God Hair Perfect
The European Union should not be prescribing an identity. We know what that’s like, when a government tells its people how it should look; what it should be doing. That’s the first step towards totalitarianism.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Government Identity People
Europe needs to develop a sense of collective history – we need to write books from a European perspective, to teach it in schools as well.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Book School Writing
I would sooner want a strong partnership with the United States – even with (US President George W.) Bush, who I think is the worst president in a long, long time. I would sooner want a friendship with Bush than with (Russian President Vladimir) Putin.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Long Strong Thinking
A politician has finally understood that politics is not only about the closing of a mine in Ohio-it is also about the will to reach out, to embrace the world of today’s young Americans. That way, young Americans may eventually reconcile with politics.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Closing Country Embrace Politician Think Young
It’s true that in France there is always this ridiculous complex about money. Money is cursed, shameful, money disqualifies you . . . In America, even though it is a Protestant country, it’s the opposite.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Complex Country Ridiculous Shameful True
You can be horrified by the state of the prisons, the misery in certain neighborhoods of its cities, or their level of poverty.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Evil Level Mean Neighborhood Political
The terrorists exist, and I think we must speak to them, not to establish a dialogue-since for serious terrorists that is unfortunately out of the question – but to learn how their brains work, to be better able to fight them.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Brain Fighting Thinking
America creates myths by focusing a lot of energy on its history and using it – – not always, but sometimes – for constructive purposes.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Country Energy Purpose
I reject the idea that there is some sort of existential “clash of civilizations.” I am an interventionist, but not a militarist. War should always be a last resort.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Civilization Ideas War
Even if it doesn’t sound like it at first, that’s an identity that Europe can go out into the world with and take a leading role.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Country Identity Sound
There is a true weakness in American thought today: their incapacity to be interested in the intelligence of evil.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Evil Today Weakness
Why should an intellectual have to renounce the pleasures of life? I am not a hermit. I am a man of flesh and blood. In fact, if you look at my name in French, that schizophrenia, that aspiration to several lives is contained in my name. Lévy is also les vies – “the lives”.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Intellectual Men Schizophrenia
The totalitarian state is not a force unleashed, the truth is in chains.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Chains States Truth
Each time a Palestinian or an Israeli dies, it is terrible. But they have the right to have a funeral, to be buried, to have a place in the memory of the survivors. And then you have these other places – Darfur, Rwanda.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Each Funeralmpalestian Memories Moving Time
I work even when I am on vacation. You know that line by Stéphane Mallarmé, “All earthly existence must ultimately be contained in a book”? I am the kind of person who finds life interesting only if it is translated into writing, if it is parsed into words.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Book Vacation Writing

I would sooner want a strong partnership with the United States – even with (US President George W.) Bush, who I think is the worst president in a long, long time. I would sooner want a friendship with Bush than with (Russian President Vladimir) Putin.

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I would sooner want a strong partnership with the United States – even with (US President George W.) Bush, who I think is the worst president in a long, long time. I would sooner want a friendship with Bush than with (Russian President Vladimir) Putin.

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Popular Authors

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