I rush to add that I find the Web infinitely useful for rustling up information, settling arguments or locating the legends of rock stars.

I don't miss the obligation to be opinionated, but I do regret the chance to share a joy.

Someone once said that the joy is not in writing but in having written. I can't say I find that to be true, though I understand the sentiment.

The scale and the brutality of our prisons are the moral scandal of American life.

I think I'm more intensely opinionated when I speak; more agreeably balanced when I write.

The special virtue of freedom is not that it makes you richer and more powerful but that it gives you more time to understand what it means to be alive.

In the New Yorker library, I have long been shelved between Nadine Gordimer and Brendan Gill; an eerie little space nestled between high seriousness of purpose and legendary lightness of touch.