... it occurred to me that never again would he be seven years, one month and six days old, so we had better catch these moments while we can.

I understand cricket - what's going on, the scoring - but I can't understand why.

He had the sort of face that makes you realize God does have a sense of humor.

To my mind, the only possible pet is a cow. Cows love you. They will listen to your problems and never ask a thing in return. They will be your friends forever. And when you get tired of them, you can kill and eat them. Perfect.

Have you ever seen Glenn Beck in operation? It is the most terrifying thing. It's so bad that you think he's going to announce in a minute that it's all a great con. He makes Sarah Palin look reasonable and steady.

As James Surowiecki noted in a New Yorker article, given a choice between developing antibiotics that people will take every day for two weeks and antidepressants that people will take every day for ever, drug companies not surprisingly opt for the latter. Although a few antibiotics have been toughened up a bit, the pharmaceutical industry hasn't given us an entirely new antibiotic since the 1970s.

Language is more fashion than science, and matters of usage, spelling and pronunciation tend to wander around like hemlines.