You have the capacity to change the plotline of your life, even if you've been acting from the same script since before you can remember.

Capitalism is the only engine credible enough to generate mass wealth. I think it's imperfect, but we're stuck with it. And thank God we have that in the toolbox. But if you don't manage it in some way that incorporates all of society, if everybody's not benefiting on some level and you don't have a sense of shared purpose, national purpose, then it's just a pyramid scheme.

The beauty of love is that in giving it away, you are left with more than you had before.

Nobody reads anymore in America. Reading has become the least effective delivery system for narrative. That's sad because prose is the means by which you can deliver very complicated, nuanced explanations of problems and possible solutions.

Since the Donald Trump election, which has involved this administration making direct attacks on press freedoms, you're actually seeing a certain amount of rallying and reinvigoration by the national press in terms of covering national issues and the presidency. The Washington Post and The New York Times, Mother Jones, ProPublica and a lot of other places, they've actually done some really strong work when confronted with this administration. But the resources that you used to have at state and local level aren't there anymore.

Homicide is the major leagues, the center ring, the show. It always has been ... It goes beyond academic degrees, specialized training or book learning, because all the theory in the world means nothing if you can't read the street.

Rural America's not coming back. That idea was lost with the Industrial Revolution.