If you go around Colombia or Latin America, without doubt you will find that 80 per cent of the time, you're discussing the past and only 20 per cent about the future.

I say that building peace is like building a cathedral. You have to have a solid base, and then you do it brick by brick. But the process is irreversible. There's no way back.

I think that we are trying to move towards the First World slowly but surely. But we must do a good job for the people left way behind. That's why extreme poverty, for us, is a priority.

It's in the interest of the U.S. to maintain a strong democracy in Colombia.

Barack Obama's enemies are the people who make this country work. Barack Obama's enemies are those who succeed. Those are the people whose income he wants to redistribute. Those are the people whose income he wants to take, using the power and the force of the federal government to do it.

Our political institutions work remarkably well. They are designed to clang against each other. The noise is democracy at work.

The income tax is flawed for a number of reasons - it discourages economic growth and encourages a bloated government.

When it comes to Washington, most people tend to think first of politics. But Washington is also a geographic and physical place. It is, for instance, one of the few cities of the world where you can talk endlessly about trees.