I think the political class in Berlin doesn't need to be supervised and monitored by intelligence services in order to find out what they're thinking. Just go to lunch with them, go to dinner with them, or read the papers.

Whenever you have political conflict, such as the one that we have now between Russia and Ukraine, but also in many other conflicts around the world, it has always proved to be right to try again and again to solve such a conflict.

This inclination to hoard is deeply ingrained in me because in the past, in times of scarcity, you took what you could get.

Having led many negotiations with countries outside the E.U. in the past, we would never enter the same compromises and reach the same good outcomes with states that don't shoulder the responsibilities and costs of the common market.

If you get people to commit to an email relationship, it's the deepest, most intimate relationship you can have online. Much deeper than Facebook and certainly more intimate than a blog.

Poverty was a relationship, I thought, involving poor and rich people alike.

I'm in a monogamous relationship and have been for many, many years. I think it's a choice. I don't think you can generalize, though, and what works for me may not work for other people, but I don't think everybody cheats. We're all different.

The people who can step up my experience are those who have a common set of experiences with people I know. Think about it. How often did a total stranger come into your life to make your evening better? Not very often. But the friend of your friend? That happens all the time.