You win the presidency by connecting with the American people’s gut insecurities and aspirations. You win with a concept. – Thomas Friedman
Being one of my sources is exhausting. It’s not one interview and you’re done. I keep going back until I feel like I understand everything. – Thomas Friedman
The country that owns green, that dominates that industry, is going to have the most energy security, national security, economic security, competitive companies, healthy population and, most of all, global respect. – Thomas Friedman
Al Qaeda is nothing more than a mutant supply chain. They’re playing off the same platform as Wal-Mart and Dell. They’re just not restrained by it. What is al Qaeda? It’s an open source religious political movement that works off the global supply chain. That’s what we’re up against in Iraq. We’re up against a suicide supply chain. – Thomas Friedman
There’s a difference between being able to make long distance phone calls cheaper on the Internet and walking around Riyadh with a PDA where you can have all of Google in your pocket. It’s a difference in degree that’s so enormous it becomes a difference in kind. – Thomas Friedman
I have a daughter who is a sophomore in college and another who is in the 11th grade of high school. – Thomas Friedman
No matter where I go – London, Beirut, Jerusalem, Washington, Beijing, or Bangalore – I’m always looking to rediscover that land of ten thousand lakes where politics actually worked to make people’s lives better, not pull them apart. – Thomas Friedman
Rock stars get room keys, I get business cards. Wherever I go I meet innovators of wind power equipment, solar energy operators. – Thomas Friedman
The more Israel sinks into the West Bank, the more it is delegitimized and isolated, the more the world focuses on Israel’s colonialism rather than Iran’s nuclear enrichment, the more people call for a single democratic state in all of historic Palestine. – Thomas Friedman
We need better neighbors, neighbors that care about the schools in their neighborhood whether they have kids in them or not, because they know that the health and vitality of that neighborhood depends on it. – Thomas Friedman
When I wrote ‘The World Is Flat,’ I said the world is flat. Yeah, we’re all connected. Facebook didn’t exist; Twitter was a sound; the cloud was in the sky; 4G was a parking place; LinkedIn was a prison; applications were what you sent to college; and Skype, for most people, was a typo. – Thomas Friedman
If you don’t visit the bad neighborhoods, the bad neighborhoods are going to visit you. – Thomas Friedman
Whatever you may be thinking when you apply for a job today, you can be sure the employer is asking this: Can this person add value every hour, every day – more than a worker in India, a robot or a computer? Can he or she help my company adapt by not only doing the job today but also reinventing the job for tomorrow? – Thomas Friedman
Being really good at ‘learning how to learn,’ as President Bill Brody of Johns Hopkins put it, will be an enormous asset in an era of rapid change and innovation, when new jobs will be phased in and old ones phased out faster than ever. – Thomas Friedman
There’s no question that a great teacher can make a huge difference in a student’s achievement, and we need to recruit, train and reward more such teachers. But here’s what some new studies are also showing: We need better parents. Parents more focused on their children’s education can also make a huge difference in a student’s achievement. – Thomas Friedman
I’m a capitalist. I believe in capitalism. But capitalism only works if you have safety nets to deal with people who are naturally left behind and brutalized by it. – Thomas Friedman
