an the president bring out the voters who were so enthusiastic about him in 2008 and seem a little disenchanted now? Can he bring out young people? Can he bring out Latinos? Can he bring out those white suburban moms?

It is so easy to waste our lives: our days, our hours, our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the pale new growth on an evergreen, the sheen of the limestone on Fifth Avenue, the colour of our kids’ eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. It is so easy to exist instead of live. Unless you know there is a clock ticking.

Ethnic stereotypes are misshapen pearls, sometimes with a sandy grain of truth at their center. ... but they ignore complexity, change, and individuality.

It would take a helluva man to replace no man at all.

Your hair isn't quite right and maybe you're a size bigger than you should be and on and on and on. I think there comes a moment when you've matured to the point where you suddenly think, nonsense. I am fine just the way I am.

Whether talking about addiction, taxation [on cigarettes] or education [about smoking], there is always at the center of the conversation an essential conundrum: How come we're selling this deadly stuff anyway?

My father really, really pushed me to excel in a way that I resented for years and then realized had really worked for me.