It doesn't take much insight to realize that wars have been getting worse every time - worse from the point of view of the civilian, more and more destructive, more and more total.

Learning that we have a scapegoat is to lose it forever and to expose ourselves to mimetic conflicts with no possible resolution.

We are aware that globalization doesn't mean global friendship but global competition and, therefore, conflict. That doesn't mean we will all destroy each other, but it is no happy global village, either.

I believe that in intense conflict, far from becoming sharper, differences melt away.

I think my mother was there all the time. Every time I thought I was almost dying and gave up hope in my life, I felt like she was whispering in my ear and asking me, 'Why are you doing this?'

Would we be so enamored with dystopian fiction if we lived in a culture where violent death was a major concern? It wouldn't be escapism.

What I do know is that with a celebrity's death comes an avalanche of media, and in that media is most often another death - it takes a life that is filled with complicated talent, hope, success and drive and reduces it to the 'story.'

Since Beau's death, I'm definitely shattered. I feel like a piece of china that's been glued back together again. The cracks may be imperceptible-but they're there. Look closely, and you can see the glue holding me together, the precarious edges that vein through my heart. I am not the same. I feel it every day.