It often seems, looking back, that the unexpected comes to define us, the paths we didn't see coming and may have wandered down by mistake. The older we get the more willing we are to follow those, to surprise ourselves.

I do tend to be almost kind of Pollyanna-ish person.

... It was the idea of facing a future skimming the surface of life, winging my way in and out of other people's crises, confusions, and passages, engaging them enough to get the story, but never enough to be indelibly touched by what I had seen or heard.

If I had to guess what the new Etch-A-Sketch picture is going to be like, it's going to be considerably less to the right. Romney has backed himself into a couple of corners that I don't think will serve him well in the general election, the main one being very harsh stands on immigration, which I think are not only short-sighted but to my mind immoral.

I think anyone who comes upon a Nautilus machine suddenly will agree with me that its prototype was clearly invented at some time in history when torture was considered a reasonable alternative to diplomacy.

There is something so settled and stodgy about turning a great romance into next of kin on an emergency room form, and something so soothing and special, too.

Your children make it impossible to regret your past. They're its finest fruits. Sometimes the only ones.