George Packer

The Senate was an odd compromise between the founders and the early leaders of the republic who wanted a single house which was based on popular sovereignty representing the people and those founders who wanted two houses, the upper house, the Senate, being the more aristocratic.

What I found in Silicon Valley is an industry that's sort of been kept a very far remove from Washington and had an attitude of 'Just let us do our thing and make the miracles that people love around the world and leave us alone.'

While starving refugees in Homs were providing target practice for government snipers, Bashar al-Assad's strongest international backer was in Sochi, at the Iceberg Skating Palace, visibly moved, smiling with deep satisfaction, as the Russians beautifully glided and leaped their way to the gold medal in the team event.

I actually think that self-interest is overrated as an all-purpose guide to political motive. It leaves out something at least as powerful and immovable - individual psychology.

Together, Apple and Walmart represent the intense separation of American life into blue and red, rich and poor, overpriced and undersold, hyperconnected and left behind.

Oprah is just this goddess presiding over so much of American life, and her story is really interesting - the way she made herself, and the ruthlessness it took, and also the fantasizing that it took.

Politics demands certain skills honed by experience, just as journalism does, just as acting does.

A religion is not just a set of texts but the living beliefs and practices of its adherents.

When I interviewed Paul Bremer in his office, he had almost no books on his shelves. He had a couple of management books, like 'Leadership' by Rudolph Giuliani. I didn't take it as an encouraging sign.

The best example of Obama's success in foreign policy is Iran.

The similarities are limited but real. They amount to a shared disgust with politics as usual in America. The Tea Party focuses on the federal government; Occupy Wall Street focuses on corporate America and its influence over the government.

Today, we have our own concentrations of economic power. Instead of Standard Oil, U.S. Steel, the Union Pacific Railroad, and J. P. Morgan and Company, we have Amazon, Google, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft.