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Over time, Europeans have come to rely on governments to protect them from the rougher facets of private enterprise and to look after them in old age.

I grew up in a house where service to the country was a way of life, not a means of reaching a personal goal.

Like Americans, people outside America want fun, want an emotional compensation for the utilitarianism and calculation that mark the rest of their lives.

The European style of living is seductive: fewer hours worked, more hours at the cafe, less concern over self-betterment. But that style of living does not produce a purposeful life.

Life for the European is a career; for the American it is a hazard.

I wish Americans thought more like Europeans when it comes to money and work. They take time off, they do what they love. We think work is the most valued commodity. Really the most valued commodity is time.

A lot of people are deeply dissatisfied by the diminishing control they have over their lives, because of the way our system of government is set up, to cater to the powerful, cater to the wealthy, cater to the corporations, and not to the individual American citizen.

Europe has to address people's needs directly and reflect their priorities, not our own preoccupations.

We're living at this funny time, where we're all urged to express ourselves as unique individuals, but on the other hand, we share a limited set of tools for doing that. It's easy to feel like nothing more than the sum of your consumer choices.

I think there is a big disjuncture between what we are served up as consumers and what we are served up as citizens.