When children are small, parents should run their lives and not the other way around.

I did not read from a sense of superiority, or advancement, or even learning. I read because I loved it more than any other activity on earth.

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

People who are knowledgeable about poetry sometimes discuss it in that knowing, rather hateful way in which oenophiles talk about wine: robust, delicate, muscular. This has nothing to do with how most of us experience it, the heart coming around the corner and unexpectedly running into the mind. Of all the words that have stuck to the ribs of my soul, poetry has been the most filling.

I'm going to live long enough to live in an America that will assume universal health care is a basic right. That will be amusing and terrific.

Kids and violent TV, violent TV and violence, violence and kids. The only people missing from this discussion are the parents. Where are we? Gone. Abdicated.

If you want something, it will elude you. If you do not want something, you will get ten of it in the mail.