The year I began to say vahz instead of vase, a man I barely knew nearly accidentally killed me.

Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed.

They say the smart dog obeys but the smarter dog knows when to disobey.

I want to know everything about you, so I tell you everything about myself.

Obviously, in journalism, you're confined to what happens. And the tendency to embellish, to mythologize, it's in us. It makes things more interesting, a closer call. But journalism taught me how to write a sentence that would make someone want to read the next one.

Just once in my life--oh, when have I ever wanted anything just once in my life?

It was like that class at school where the teacher talks about Realization, about how you could realize something big in a commonplace thing. The example he gave--and the liar said it really happened--was that once while drinking orange juice, he'd realized he would be dead someday. He wondered if we, his students, had had similar 'realizations.' Is he kidding? I thought. Once I cashed a paycheck and I realized it wasn't enough. Once I had food poisoning, and realized I was trapped inside my body.