I think my background, coming from Iran, which is a great country but is going through its share of troubles, really allows me to appreciate what we have here.

Desperation sometimes drives innovation.

I think I wanted to be a doctor. In Iran, the engineering and medical professions are worshipped. My father very much wanted me to be a doctor. I was certainly eager to please as a young man - as a kid, I should say.

One of the early lessons that I learned in leadership is that it's the leader's job to always go against the flow.

I was gifted with a life that was full of adventure. I've always believed, if you're gifted, that it's incumbent not to think about giving something back.

Stories serve the purpose of consolidating whatever gains people or their leaders have made or imagine they have made in their existing journey thorough the world.

There's something about the kind of time travel that a poem can provide. It can take you to somewhere else - a culture far from you, a language far from you, but suddenly you're there. You're that person, seeing with that person's eyes. I think that's really tremendous. Even things like cinema or more traditional history can't quite do that.

To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while.