There is a vast difference between positive thinking and existential courage.

The money that fueled the explosion of gluttony at the top had to come from somewhere or, more specifically, from someone. Since no domestic oil deposits had been discovered, no new seams of uranium or gold, and since the war in Iraq enriched only the military contractors and suppliers, it had to come from other Americans.

Feminists have not tried to "destroy the family". We just thought the family was such a good idea that men might want to get involved in it too.

Poverty is not a character failing or a lack of motivation. Poverty is a shortage of money.

I have a Ph.D. in cell biology. And that's really manual labor. I mean, experimental science, you do it with your hands. So it's very different. You're out there in a lab, cleaning test tubes, and it just wasn't that fascinating.

So even though I consider myself a fairly upbeat person, energetic and things like that, I never do very well on happiness tests.

... there hasn't been a serious life-style trend since the couch potato was sighted, in about 1986, on one of its rare forays to the video store. Cocooning remains a significant mass enterprise, encouraged by the availability of five hundred new cable channels and microwavable popcorn.