Quotes By Thomas Friedman

We need to become energy independent or at least aspire to that.

Presidents grow up in the White House. The times shape the man.

By 'flat' I did not mean that the world is getting equal. I said that more people in more places can now compete, connect and collaborate with equal power and equal tools than ever before. That's why an Indian in Bangalore can take care of the office work of American doctors or read the X-rays of German hospitals.

Two things are going on at the same time with the flattening of the world: The relentless quest for efficiency is squeezing some of the fat out of life.

I've been a critic of the antiglobalization movement, and they've been a critic of me, but the one thing I respect about the movement is their authentic energy. These are not people who don't care about the world.

It created a global platform that allowed more people to plug and play, collaborate and compete, share knowledge and share work, than anything we have ever seen in the history of the world.

I was in Bangalore, India, the Silicon Valley of India, when I realized that the world was flat.

There is no substitute for face-to-face reporting and research.

The historical debate is over. The answer is free-market capitalism.

You'll know the green revolution has been won when the word 'green' disappears.

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.

Basically all the world's computer parts come from the same supply chain that runs from Korea, down through coastal China, over to Taiwan, and down to Malaysia.

I said that more people in more places can now compete, connect and collaborate with equal power and equal tools than ever before.

Rock stars get room keys, I get business cards.

I basically did all the library research for this book on Google, and it not only saved me enormous amounts of time but actually gave me a much richer offering of research in a shorter time.

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.

Supply chains cannot tolerate even 24 hours of disruption. So if you lose your place in the supply chain because of wild behavior you could lose a lot. It would be like pouring cement down one of your oil wells.

America needs rebooting.

We've gone from thinking the fuels that powered our growth were inexpensive, inexhaustible and benign to understanding they are exhaustible, expensive and toxic. Once you frame the problem that way, people will look at solutions differently.

We are led by lawyers who do not understand either technology or balance sheets.

I am hoping, though, that many of them have kids, who, when they have a moment to take a break from their iPods, Internet, or Google, will explain to their parents running the country just how the world is being flattened.

Optimists are usually wrong. But all the great change in history, positive change, was done by optimists.

Yes, the world is now flat for publishing as well.

Several technological and political forces have converged, and that has produced a global, Web-enabled playing field that allows for multiple forms of collaboration without regard to geography or distance - or soon, even language.

No, most of our political elite has not realized that the world is flat.

Golf has an ambivalent relationship with the environment. On one hand, it's a great preserver of open spaces. Golf doesn't pave the world - it helps to green the world. But the downside is, it uses a lot of fertilizer, pesticides and water.

When I was growing up, my parents told me, 'Finish your dinner. People in China and India are starving.' I tell my daughters, 'Finish your homework. People in India and China are starving for your job.'

Rock stars get room keys, I get business cards. Wherever I go I meet innovators of wind power equipment, solar energy operators.

Every sport needs its temple, its cathedral.

Sometimes, when my wife and I were going out to dinner, I would take my laptop with me and work in the car, so as to take advantage of the half hour going and coming.