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" This experience of getting so lost in my writing that I lose track of time, or of anything outside the imagined world, is a release for me. "

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" American politics, like most things, is a story of what statisticians describe as the reversion to the mean. "

" As Obama prepares to begin the last year of his presidency, he stands in an unusual position on the national stage: He is the rationalist, a creature of intellect rather than emotion. "

" This is a universal human dream - that brains, not brawn, will rule - and the fact that America has the world's finest institutions of higher education may be our greatest single national asset. "

" The nation's chronic weakness is its political system, which is nearing dysfunction. If the U.S. can elect better political leadership, it should be able to manage problems better than most competitors. "

" Enter the candidates on horseback: While military leaders can sometimes be dangerous in politics, our best generals and admirals embody the democratic values and leadership skills for which the country is yearning. "

" What frustrates U.S. officials is that China sometimes seems more comfortable accommodating a strong United States, as it did in past decades, than partnering with an America that's less dominant. "

" Images sometimes capture particular periods in history. The unreachable green light, beckoning from across the bay in 'The Great Gatsby,' has become a symbol of the yearning of America in the 1920s. "

" World War II provides a string of celebrated cases of deception and manipulation. "

" Frightened people want to protect themselves, sometimes without thinking about others. Often, they get angry and want to find someone to blame for catastrophe. Inevitably, they spread information without checking if it's true. "

" Journalists couldn't do their jobs overseas without taking risks, and the same is true for diplomats and intelligence officers. "

" The value of catastrophic events is that they can help people face up to problems that are otherwise impossible to address. "

" Training a reliable military force that adheres to Western norms and standards is the work of a generation, not a few months. "

" When historians look at the Obama presidency, they're likely to credit him especially for doing the politically unpopular things that were needed in 2009 to salvage the financial wreckage. "

" Machiavelli did believe that it was better to appear to be good than to be good. If you're good, you're just too vulnerable, but if you appear to be good, you get all the benefits plus you can be sneaky and, when necessary, stab someone in the back. "

" Intelligence services exist to do things that are illegal abroad. They exist to tell lies. "

" The European Union needs to reinvent its security system. It needs to break the stovepipes that prevent sharing information, enforcing borders and protecting citizens. "

" Moscow and Washington have evolved a delicate process for 'de-confliction' in the tight Syrian airspace, where accidents or miscommunication could be disastrous. "

" Sometimes James Bond movies drive me crazy. They're fun to watch, but they don't have anything to do at all with what intelligence officers really do. "

" Helping Wall Street regain confidence and stability was the last thing an angry public wanted in 2009 after the markets crashed. But without such support, markets can buckle and liquidity can disappear - often for decades, as has been the case in Japan. "

" Saudi Arabia is a frightened monarchy. It's beset by Sunni extremists from the Islamic State and Shiite extremists backed by Iran. "

" President Obama was right to ban torture, but the public must understand that this decision carries a potential cost in lost information. That's what makes it a moral choice. "

" Politicians often call for sanctions as a way of sounding tough when they don't want to take riskier measures. "

" Sometimes good countries are so traumatized by events that they lose their bearings and embrace bad leaders. "

" Panic is a natural human response to danger, but it's one that severely compounds the risk. "

" Middle Eastern wars rarely end with outright victory and permanent stability, so the word 'settlement' may promise too much. At best, for many years, it may simply mean stable ceasefire lines, reduced bloodshed, fewer refugees, and less terrorism. "

" U.S. power flows from our unmatched military might, yes. But in a deeper way, it's a product of the dominance of the U.S. economy. "

" U.S. adversaries exploit power gaps. It's easier for Russia to invade Ukraine with irregular forces out of uniform, the so-called 'little green men,' than to send a conventional army that would challenge NATO. "

" The truth is, as you know, people like us look at what's happening in the world, and then we project it forward. We think, 'If I know A and B, then I've got to know that C and D are coming,' and that's kind of the way it's been with my fiction. "

" The surest way to empower the new terrorist gangs would be to withdraw from U.S. diplomatic missions. "

" Paradoxically, the United States' determination to protect its troops can be self-defeating. Allies and adversaries see U.S. forces living in secure compounds, eating fancy chow and minimizing their exposure to potential terrorist assaults. "