I want to get to a point in my career where I can be a good role model.
I prefer a painful truth over any blissful fantasy.
I wanted the American public to know that not everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan were targets that needed to be neutralized, but rather people who were struggling to live in the pressure cooker environment of what we call asymmetric warfare.
I want people to see the truth. . . regardless of who they are. . . because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.
I think we can achieve meaningful change, but only if we demand that the institutions themselves change their behavior.
I regret if my actions hurt anyone or harmed the United States. It was never my intent to hurt anyone. When I chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others.
There are just too many opportunities - and an increasing number of them - to hide systemic, institutional wrongdoing behind legal veils, legal theories, and arbitrary exemptions. I hope that we can start to chip away at this, but it sure looks like society is still sliding in the opposite direction.
Man is not free to refuse to do the thing which gives him more pleasure than any other conceivable action.
If you could ask that question more precisely, you probably wouldn't be interested in the answer anymore
Sometimes, upon waking, the residual dream can be more appealing that reality, and one is reluctant to give it up. For a while, you feel like a ghost -- Not fully materialized, and unable to manipulate your surroundings. Or else, it is the dream that haunts you. You wait with the promise of the next dream.
It is the fear of middle-age in the young, of old-age in the middle-aged, which is the prime cause of infidelity, that infallible rejuvenator.