“[...]what we are talking about are negative obligations--the duty not to cause harm.”

“The entire premise behind the Bush administration's policy of holding 'enemy combatants' in foreign military bases such as Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was so that neither U.S. domestic law nor American obligations under international law would be applicable.”

“Whether we are willing to acknowledge it or not, the Western conception of human rights is really about the practices of other states--but never our own. One reason Western people have adopted this worldview is that it tends to make us look good. But another possible reason might be that our 'wrongs' might not be 'international wrongs' after all.”

“[...]if Nazi Germany had not invaded other countries but had simply sought to eliminate the entire Jewish population within its own territorial borders, this would not have constituted a violation of international law, as incredible as this now seems.”

“We have nothing in this life of suffocating obligation but our motherfucking impudence!”

“Intimacy, says the phenomenologist Gaston Bachelard, is the highest value. I resist this statement at first. What about artistic achievement, or moral courage, or heroism, or altruistic acts, or work in the cause of social change? What about wealth or accomplishment? And yet something about it rings true, finally—that what we want is to be brought into relationship, to be inside, within. Perhaps it’s true that nothing matters more to us than that.”

“Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do.Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”