“In contrast to the situation in 1945, the world does not need the US; it is the US that needs the rest of the world”

“Nowadays, you can do anything that you want—anal, oral, fisting—but you need to be wearing gloves, condoms, protection.”

“A dispassionate conceptual development of the typology of violence must by definition ignore its traumatic impact. Yet there is a sense in which a cold analysis of violence somehow reproduces and participates in its horror. A distinction needs to be made, as well, between (factual) truth and truthfulness: what renders a report of a raped woman (or any other narrative of a trauma) truthful is its very factual unreliability, its confusion, its inconsistency. If the victim were able to report on her painful and humiliating experience in a clear manner, with all the data arranged in a consistent order, this very quality would make us suspicious of its truth.”

“[T]aking the Third into account does not bring us into the position of pragmatic consideration, of comparing different Others; the task is rather to learn to distinguish between "false" conflicts and the "true" conflict. For example, today's conflict between Western liberalism and religious fundamentalism is a "false" one, since it is based on the exclusion of the third term which is its "truth": the Leftist emancipatory position.”

“The socioeconomic impact of such a minor outburst is due to our technological development (air travel)—a century ago, such an eruption would have passed unnoticed. Technological development makes us more independent from nature. At the same time, at a different level, it makes us more dependent on nature’s whims.”

“The problem for us is not are our desires satisfied or not. The problem is how do we know what we desire.”

“Our biological body itself is a form of hardware that needs re-programming through tantra like a new spiritual software which can release or unblock its potential.”