"The United States has been a major player in the Middle East for a long time, and its policies have often been detrimental to the people of the region."

"The intellectual must be a skeptic, not a believer."

"The intellectual's role is to be a gadfly, to sting the conscience of society, to provoke thought and debate."

"Much as I have no wish to hurt anyone's feelings, my first obligation has not been to be nice but to be true to my perhaps peculiar memories, experiences and feelings."

"The intellectual is not an expert, but a generalist, a humanist, a universalist."