“The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. Communication does not depend on syntax, or eloquence, or rhetoric, or articulation but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. People can only hear you when they are moving toward you, and they are not likely to when your words are pursuing them. Even the choicest words lose their power when they are used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figures of speech.”

“The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think. ”

“Only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.”

“For all your days prepare, And meet them ever alike: When you are the anvil, bear-When you are the hammer, strike.”

“For all your years prepare,And meet them ever alike;When you are the anvil, bear--When you are the hammer, strike.”

“When you go,if you go,And I should want to die,there's nothing I'd be saved bymore than the timeyou fell asleep in my armsin a trust so gentleI let the darkening roomdrink up the evening, tillrest, or the new rainlightly roused you awake.I asked if you heard the rain in your dreamand half dreaming still you only said, I love you.”

“Claire: Dear Claire, "What" and "If" are two words as non-threatening as words can be. But put them together side-by-side and they have the power to haunt you for the rest of your life: What if? What if? What if? I don't know how your story ended but if what you felt then was true love, then it's never too late. If it was true then, why wouldn't it be true now? You need only the courage to follow your heart. I don't know what a love like Juliet's feels like - love to leave loved ones for, love to cross oceans for but I'd like to believe if I ever were to feel it, that I will have the courage to seize it. And, Claire, if you didn't, I hope one day that you will. All my love, Juliet”