Is there any vanity greater than the vanity of those who believe themselves without it?

Thinking about profound social change, conservatives always expect disaster, while revolutionaries confidently anticipate utopia. Both are wrong.

The sign of a good marriage is that everything is debatable and challenged; nothing is turned into law or policy. The rules, if any, are known only to the two players, who seek no public trophies.

Power is the ability to take one's place in whatever discourse is essential to action and the right to have one's part matter.

Male friends do not always face each other; they stand side by side, facing the world.

Upon becoming fifty the one thing you can't afford is habit.

One cannot make up stories; one can only retell in new ways the stories one has already heard.