Conflict Sources Quotes

The United States learned a big lesson. Its greatest danger in the world came not from large nations but from failed states.

Possession isn't nine-tenths of the law. It's nine-tenths of the problem.

The chief differences among men are over means, not ends.

Prison makes an interesting context for so many different characters to come together. You get to see what lines get drawn between people.

The greater part of the world's troubles are due to questions of grammar.

The people who are making you feel under attack is your union leadership, and they're doing it for politically intense reasons.

It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new [post-Cold-War] world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.

Family politics are worse than world politics. That's all I can say. You don't get to choose your family; you get to choose your friends. Your family is imposed upon you.

I talk out of experience that relationships don't get messy; it's our heads that are messy. People's expectations and beliefs screw up relationships.

I feel like most movies about female friends derive their conflict from an extension of the high school movie rivalries, or there's some petty grievance: a competition over a guy or a wedding date or something. And I don't relate to any of that.

There was something horrifying in the realization that, in this twenty-first century of what we call 'civilization,' we have carved up what we claim is one world into 200 artificially created entities we call 'nations' and armed to apprehend or kill anyone who crosses a boundary.

The world’s gravest conflicts are not over ethical principles or disputed values but over disputed facts.

The part of my personality that most irritated my husband, some of our big, big disagreements were when I got what he called 'showbiz.' He meant flamboyant or raucous.