There is a lot of talk now about metal detectors and gun control. Both are good things. But they are no more a solution than forks and spoons are a solution to world hunger.

In a democratic society, the only treason is silence.

Athletes are American princes and the locker room is their castle. Some of them behave in princely fashion, become legitimate heroes to us all. And some are jerks.

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.

For many years, despite what I thought were really punitive decisions about women in the church, I stayed and stayed and stayed. I kept saying to myself, "The Catholic church is my church, and by God, I'm going to stay here, despite what the hierarchy does."

There's some muscle group around your shoulders that seizes up during the perfection dance and doesn't let go until you are asleep, or alone. Or maybe it never really lets go at all.

[President Johnson] had the political will to say that having one in five Americans living in the kind of abject conditions their fellow citizens associated with Third World countries and the novels of Dickens was as dangerous as any battlefield enemy.