“Misconceptions play a prominent role in my view of the world.”

“The anti-resource curse initiative has stronger legs than most and that has made me very enthusiastic.”

“I commissioned two political experts to advise me about what I could do to oppose the re-election of President Bush.”

“Everybody says that I have a lot of power. But what does that power consist of?... Can I influence governments? I am beginning to be able to..." (1995)”

“It is much easier to put existing resources to better use, than to develop resources where they do not exist.”

“My main concern is with the world order”

“Whenever you don't know someone and you overhear their problems they always sound so trivial.”

“Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.”

“There are always answers. We just have to be smart enough.”

“They had killed themselves over our dying forests, over manatees maimed by propellers as they surfaced to drink from garden hoses; they had killed themselves at the sight of used tires stacked high...”

“The world seemed to shimmer a little at the edges.”

“If we cannot accept the importance of the world, which considers itself important, if in the midst of that world our laughter finds no echo, we have but one choice: to take the world as a whole and...”

“I shiver, thinking how easy it is to be totally wrong about people-to see one tiny part of them and confuse it for the whole, to see the cause and think it's the effect or vice versa”

“At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear.”

“I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.”