The vice-president's tongue is several time zones ahead of his brain.

Reading any collection of a man's quotations is like eating the ingredients that go into a stew instead of cooking them together in the pot. You eat all the carrots, then all the potatoes, then the meat. You won't go away hungry, but it's not quite satisfying. Only a biography, or autobiography, gives you the hot meal.

Who needs evidence when you've got the Internet?

The best advice on writing I've ever received was from William Zinsser: 'Be grateful for every word you can cut.'

How many times had those awful words - "I know what I'm doing" - been uttered throughout history as prelude to disaster?

Who knew, in 2000, that compassionate conservatism meant bigger government, unrestricted government spending, government intrusion in personal matters, government ineptitude, and cronyism in disaster relief? Who knew, in 2000, that the only bill the president would veto, six years later, would be one on funding stem-cell research? A more accurate term for Mr. Bush's political philosophy might be incontinent conservatism.

I think that every man is afraid of his wife.