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.

I really feel like I'm a liberal because I'm a Catholic, because I took the words of the New Testament to heart.

Life is so messy that the temptation to straighten it up is very strong. And the results always illusory.

the joy of someone who had been a reader all her life, whose world had been immeasurably enlarged by the words of others.

The women of my mother's generation had, in the main, only one decision to make about their lives: who they would marry. From that, so much else followed: where they would live, in what sort of conditions, whether they would be happy or sad or, so often, a bit of both. There were roles and there were rules.

An election marks the end of the affair; it puts paid to the seduction of the many by the few. Pretty words, fulsome promises. We wind up married, but to whom, to what? We cannot always predict with certainty the future leader from the winning candidate. Some men grow in the job; others are diminished by its demands and its grandeur.

You want to have fun with your kids, and no one has fun with someone who runs roughshod.