Early on I saw the repression and idolatry of Stalinism and when it cracked I was open to religion again.

Another important historical factor is the fact that this already very simple religion was further simplified and purified by the early philosophers of ancient China. Our first great philosopher was a founder of naturalism and our second great philosopher was an agnostic.

In the early days I had a very black-and-white view of everything. I think that's kind of natural for anyone who's just embraced Islam - or any religion - as a convert. It was important for me to duck out of the fast and furious life I'd been living as a pop star. I was in a different mood.

In nearly every religion I am aware of there is a variation of the golden rule. And even for the non-religious it is a tenet of people who believe in humanistic principles.

Religion is the organization of spirituality into something that became the hand maiden of conquerors. Nearly all religions were brought to people and imposed on people by conquerors and used as the framework to control their minds.

Growing up training I use to get up so early I would wave to the garbage men going by. So I had this relationship with Blue Collar America and I really liked it. I felt that lots of those people looked forward to me winning.

I was always in trouble from an early age. I had a fraught relationship with my parents who were very traditional. Doing plays at school was a joyous release.

My early work and publications centered around expanding on the analysis of life insurance in my dissertation and its relationship to investment banking.

So I developed very early a massive inferiority complex and I've told the story often about how that inspired me later in life to get involved in other things because I couldn't out-do my brothers in sports and it's a very competitive relationship.

There is a relationship between cartooning and people like Mir= and Picasso which may not be understood by the cartoonist but it definitely is related even in the early Disney.

How do you build a relationship when you've hardly shared a word but suddenly share a child? How do you love a daughter you don't see for nearly two years? When does she become your daughter? How does she become your daughter?

Clearly the Chinese know that we want a good relationship with them.

The most convincing argument against early parenthood is that you are in a relationship that is likely to fall apart before that child grows up.

Clearly once the student is no longer a student the possibilities of relationship are enlarged.

The African American's relationship to Africa has long been ambivalent at least since the early nineteenth century when 3 000 black men crowded into Bishop Richard Allen's African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia to protest noisily a plan to recolonize free blacks in Africa.

Something I learned very early on in my career is that there are a lot of things that you do not have any power over.

Black power can be clearly defined for those who do not attach the fears of white America to their questions about it.

You should see what our Founding Fathers used to say to each other and in the early part of our nation. But what they were able to do especially in Philadelphia in 1787 four months they argued about what a House should be what a Senate should be the power of the president the Congress the Supreme Court. And they had to deal with slavery.

I have long been a supporter of the Head Start program because each and every year I witness the dramatic positive impact that early intervention services have on children's lives in my congressional district.

More Americans own their home than ever before. Nearly 70 percent of American's are homeowners. So it is a good time for us to asses the positive impacts of homeownership on families communities and on the nation's economy.

It's a problem for him because he's got - like Edward VII had - nearly all his lifetime to wait until he becomes Monarch. What is he going to do with it? So he wants to do something positive but he always courts those dangers.

I think Karl Rove saw that in George W. Bush early on and understood the impact that he could have on Texas politics and probably on national politics.

The days when the words 'Hollywood actor' framed Ronald Reagan like bunny fingers as an ID tag and an implied insult seem far-off and quaint: nearly everybody in politics - candidate consultant pundit and Tea Party crowd extra alike - is an actor now a shameless ham in a hoked-up reality series that never stops.

Every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent scurrilous wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly every political practitioner in the country - and then declares itself puzzled that America has lost trust in its politicians.