For many years it seemed as if nothing changed in Norway. You could leave the country for three months travel the world through coups d'etat assassinations famines massacres and tsunamis and come home to find that the only new thing in the newspapers was the crossword puzzle.

The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.

Every perfect traveler always creates the country where he travels.

The world is a country which nobody ever yet knew by description one must travel through it one's self to be acquainted with it.

A wise traveler never despises his own country.

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.

No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.

If we don't get gun-control laws in this country we are full of beans. To have the National Rifle Association rule the United States is pathetic. And I agree with Mayor Michael Bloomberg: It's time to put up or shut up about gun control for both parties.

As recent as the year 2000 we won elections by saying we shouldn't be the policemen of the world and that we should not be nation building. And its time we got those values back into this country.

It may be true that you can't fool all the people all the time but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.