Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing. It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different
We passed law that encouraged consumption through different purchasing habits like, you know, hybrid vehicles. You buy hybrid, you get a tax credit. We've encouraged the spread of ethanol as an alternative to crude oil. We have asked for Congress to pass regulatory relief so we can build more refineries to increase the supply of gasoline, hopefully taking the pressure off of price. And so the strategy is to recognize that dependency upon crude oil, in a global market, affects us economically here at home. And, therefore, we need to diversify away as quickly as possible.
The forces that affect our lives, the influences that mold and shape us, are often like whispers in a different room, teasingly indistinct, apprehended only with difficulty.
My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendaciousness in the face of what is necessary—but love it
No matter who you are, no matter what your culture is, it is absolutely possible to look out and extend yourself in such a way, that you can connect to other people and find that we are more alike than we are different.
For a writer you have to be interested in different cultures, different backgrounds. You are not there to write only about your village. You're there to show a bit of your village, but also to understand other villages.