And I don't have to listen to a sermon to know what to think or feel about them. It's almost as if I absorbed completely what mattered most to me, and the rest could go.

Obama doesn't seem like a burger and a beer kind of guy. I have to say, I don't find that problematic at all.

Not writing at all leads to nothing.

You teach your 16-year-old with your heart in your mouth to be a good driver and none of that makes any difference when some drunk comes around a corner and runs a stop sign.

All of life like a series of tableaux, and in the living we missed so much, hid so much, left so much undone and unsaid.

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.

Young men kill someone for a handful of coins, then are remorseless, even casual: Hey, man, things happen. And their parents nab the culprit: it was the city, the cops, the system, the crowd, the music. Anyone but him. Anyone but me.