If you know that life is basically going to be horrendously difficult at best and all but unlivable at worst or possibly even unlivable do you go on? And the choice to go on is the only thing that I think can be called hope. Because if hope isn't forced to encounter the worst possibility then it's a lie.

What I hope in my ideal world is that with each project I'll either get to work with a really great script that would force me to grow or work with a really great actor who will make me better.

Do you force your kids to pay attention to what's going on or do you let them live their lives outside of it? My hope is that my child is a strong activist. That would make me most proud.

Corporations consumers and citizens must begin acting in concert to create a powerful third pillar of social transformation if we hope to meet the social challenges we currently face with equal force. This begins with corporations that choose to alter how they practice capitalism in two ways to serve the greater good.

You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.

I have a five year-old son and a three year-old daughter. I want my son to have a choice to contribute fully in the workforce or at home. And I want my daughter to have the choice to not just succeed but to be liked for her accomplishments.

This is a good time to ask apologists for the Islamic regime who degrades Islam? Who imposes stoning forced marriage of underage girls and flogging for not wearing the veil? Do such practices represent Iran's ancient history and culture its ethnic and religious diversity? Its centuries of sensual and subversive poetry?

We are not merely passive pawns of historical forces nor are we victims of the past. We can shape and direct history.

At times we were forced to go through a history of dependence unable to determine our own destiny. But today we are at the threshold of a new turning point.

The Carter Center has the only existing international taskforce on disease eradication. Which means a total elimination of a disease on the face of the Earth. In the history of the world there's only been one disease eradicated: smallpox. The second disease I think is gonna be guinea worm.