There are those of us who believe that under certain conditions the cruelest thing you can do to people you love is to force them to live. There are those of us who define living not by whether the heart beats and the lungs lift but whether the spirit is there, whether the music box plays.

I'm going to live long enough to live in an America that will assume universal health care is a basic right. That will be amusing and terrific.

I think the last couple of years of life for many, many people are the same as they were 50, 60, 70 years ago. They could be really tough because of infirmity.

It is so easy to exist instead of live.

Somewhere between a third and a quarter of all people living in America today were born between 1946 and 1965 and if you think you're tired of hearing about us, you should try being one of us.

So much of what you take for granted is the bedrock of happiness.

Here is one of the worst things about having someone you love die: It happens again every single morning.