Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition men have at all times and in all countries called in some physical aid to their moral consolations - wine beer opium brandy or tobacco.

On bad days I think I'd like to be a plastic surgeon who goes to Third World countries and operates on children in villages with airlifts and then I think 'Yeah right I'm going to go back to undergraduate school and take all the biology I missed and then go to medical school.' No. No.

I have devoted much time and energy to helping medical physics in developing countries.

In some countries we have had the right to vote for less than 100 years so the entry of women into political leadership has caused a tsunami.

We have to forget the past. History is something that even today we are paying the consequences and the future is integration. We all as a people as citizens as the leadership of both countries should be looking in that direction.

The war and terrorism in the Middle East the crisis of leadership in many of the oil-supply countries in the developing world the crisis of global warming - all these are very clearly tied to energy.

So I think democracy in the long-term in our countries will survive if it comes to be associated with leadership will not survive if democracy plus media brings to us more and more followship rather than leadership.

It's really necessary for the United States to continue to give strong leadership to the Middle East peace process supported by European countries at the same time.

We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That's not leadership. That's not going to happen.

The most important thing I learned as a foreign correspondent in about 80 countries is that it takes a very shallow knowledge of history to think that there are solutions to most problems.