"The Arab-Israeli conflict is also in many ways a conflict about status: it's a war between two peoples who feel deeply humiliated by the other, who want the other to respect them. Battles over status can be even more intractable than those over land or water or oil."

"I'm also interested in the modern suggestion that you can have a combination of love and sex in a marriage - which no previous society has ever believed."

"I passionately believe that's it's not just what you say that counts, it's also how you say it - that the success of your argument critically depends on your manner of presenting it."

"Status anxiety definitely exists at a political level. Many Iraqis were annoyed with the US essentially for reasons of status: for not showing them respect, for humiliating them."

"I think that humans have a huge capacity to carry pain and sadness. There are things that haunt us our entire lives; we are unable to let them go. The good times seem almost effervescent and dreamlike in comparison with the times that didn't go so well."

"I can do something else besides stuff a ball through a hoop. My biggest resource is my mind."

"Men think about women. Women think about what men think about them."

"I think ever since I was preteen I wanted to direct movies and tell stories."