As a post-Holocaust kid, growing up in a neighborhood with a lot of Jewish refugees, I had got the idea there were no Jews left in Europe. But I found in my European wanderings that many of them had gone back and rebuilt their lives.

Food is interesting to me because it's a way of understanding culture and societies and history. I would never write about food just as food. Just like I would never write about baseball just as baseball.

I wanted college to be a real American adventure for me.

The impact of the Vietnam War on TV made everyone recognize the importance of visual media.

People always related to President Bush, but in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq War, his numbers collapsed because people didn't feel like he handled those properly. Obama is the inverse. He was elected because he was an extraordinary guy, but the fact that he isn't ordinary has turned out to be politically damaging.

I don't believe that economic and cultural interaction automatically brings greater peace and understanding, although it may help in that regard.

Peace and not war is the father of all things.

Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.