It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.

This war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything.

I cry secretly. I don’t really cry in front of anybody. I hate crying. I feel like it’s not accomplishing anything. But when I lost my mother, I cried, and I cried big.

Of course I constantly despair at my own incapacity, at the impossibility of ever accomplishing anything, of painting a valid, true picture or even knowing what such a thing ought to look like. But then I always have the hope that, if I persevere, it might one day happen. And this hope is nurtured every time something appears, a scattered, partial, initial hint of something which reminds me of what I long for, or which conveys a hint of it – although often enough I have been fooled by a momentary glimpse that then vanishes, leaving behind only the usual thing.

I believe myself that the secretary of state, secretary of defense and – you have to make your own decisions as to what the president knows – (know) this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday.

You must distinguish between what is urgent and what is important. You could accomplish all of the urgent things that you desire without accomplishing anything that is important.