TIMOTHY D. SNYDER

One thing that I would like to get across is that even the most horrible events do have explanations that we can understand. And it's not always comfortable for us to understand, because in order to understand, we have to see how we're not so far away from the people in question.

I worry about global anti-Semitism - not just as a bad idea that originates from bad people, but also as something that arises as a challenge to global order.

Very often, when leaders repeat things over and over, they are preparing you for when that meme actually emerges in reality.

Trump bankrupted six companies but succeeded on the biggest of stages. He is the champion of failures.

Modern tyrants are terror managers. Do not allow your shock to be turned against your freedom.

People in the West tend to identify with western victims. So even when they think about the Holocaust, they really think about the German or French victims; they're not thinking about the Polish, Hungarian, or Soviet victims.

Get the screens out of your room and surround yourself with books.

It is unclear how much money Trump has, but it is not enough to matter in Russia. If he keeps up his pose as the tough billionaire, he will be flattered by the Russian media, scorned by those who matter in Russia, and then easily crushed by men far richer and smarter than he.

Defend an institution. Follow the courts or the media, or a court or a newspaper. Do not speak of 'our institutions' unless you are making them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions don't protect themselves. They go down like dominoes unless each is defended from the beginning.

Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience.

I think, whatever ideological coloration we think actually applies to Trump, we can be pretty confident that he sees the American state as a mechanism to make sure that people called Trump are rich forever.

Democracy only has substance if there's the rule of law. That is, if people believe that the votes are going to be counted, and they are counted. If they believe that there's a judiciary out there that will make sense of things if there's some challenge. If there isn't rule of law, people will be afraid to vote the way they want to vote.

Americans do not want to think that there is an alternative to what we have. Therefore, as soon as you say 'fascism' or whatever it might be, then the American response is to say 'no' because we lack the categories that allow us to think outside of the box that we are no longer in.

Mr. Trump is primarily a television personality. As such, he is judged by that standard. This means that a scandal does not call forth a response; it calls forth the desire for a bigger scandal.

Republics, like other forms of government, exist in history and can rise and fall.

Courage does not mean not fearing or not grieving. It does mean recognizing and resisting terror management right away, from the moment of the attack, precisely when it seems most difficult to do so.

When listening to politicians, distinguish certain words. Look out for the expansive use of 'terrorism' and 'extremism.' Be alive to the fatal notions of 'exception' and 'emergency.' Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.

If we don't have access to facts, we can't trust each other. Without trust, there's no law. Without law, there's no democracy.

For the Russians, the displacement of the Holocaust is calculated and cynical. It's not emotional; they don't care about the Holocaust one way or another. They only care about it insofar as they can use it to manipulate a German sense of guilt.

Most Americans are exceptionalists; we think we live outside of history.

The 20th century shows that the form of government that we take for granted, a constitutional democratic republic with checks and balances and a rule of law - that form of government is usually temporary.

I thought I was going to grow up and become a diplomat and negotiate nuclear arms.

If it turns out that there are emotions and values that are more numerous and more vibrant than indifference and hatred, things are going to be okay. That depends on us.

Interestingly, a number of the people I know - probably you do, too - who predicted that Trump would win were precisely Russians and Ukrainians who found the political style familiar and just asked, 'Well, why couldn't it work there?' They were the ones who turned out to be right.

The premise of Russian foreign policy to the West is that the rule of law is one big joke; the practice of Russian foreign policy is to find prominent people in the West who agree.