I cannot tell you ... how to be rich. But I can tell you how to feel rich, which is far better, let me tell you firsthand, than being rich. Be grateful... It is the only totally reliable get rich quick scheme.

Put simply, the rich pay a lot of taxes as a total percentage of taxes collected, but they don't pay a lot of taxes as a percentage of what they can afford to pay, or as a percentage of what the government needs to close the deficit gap.

I am so used to having a comfortable life. What will it be like when I am no longer able to just buy anything I want?

People ask how I can be a conservative and still want higher taxes. It makes my head spin, and I guess it shows how old I am. But I thought that conservatives were supposed to like balanced budgets. I thought it was the conservative position to not leave heavy indebtedness to our grandchildren.

I feel as if I'm in on a pass and am damn lucky to have whatever I have. It could all be taken away in a second.

I'm not a Mensa member. I have no idea where that rumor came from. I never have been, and I doubt if I ever will be.

My parents, products of the Great Depression, were successful people, but lived in a state of constant fear that my sister and I, and they, would sink into the kind of economic insecurity that their generation knew so well.