I grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia and one of the things I like to say is that one of the biggest impediments I had to becoming a successful writer is I had a very happy childhood.

One of the things that got me on this topic for this book was that when I was researching the column I wrote in 2009 saying that I was stepping down from my column at "Newsweek" because I wanted to make room for newer, fresh voices out there, I discovered that in the year I was born, 1952, the average life expectancy of an American was 68. I was shocked by that figure and every time I mention it I hear a gasp from somebody in the crowd. Now, of course, we're more or less at 80, so that means that we've gotten 12 additional years.

I conveniently forgot to remember that people only have two hands, or, as another parent once said of having a third child, it's time for a zone defense instead of man-to-man.

The clearest explanation for the failure of any marriage is that the two people are incompatible; that is, that one is male and the other female.

All of the qualities that you need to be a good opinion columnist tend to be qualities that aren't valued in women.

We don't do ambivalence well in America. We do courage of our convictions. We do might makes right. Ambivalence is French. Certainty is American.

Behind every door in London there are stories, behind every one ghosts. The greatest writers in the history of the written word have given them substance, given them life. And so we readers walk, and dream, and imagine, in the city where imagination found its great home.