Americans are willing to go to enormous trouble and expense defending their principles with arms, very little trouble and expense advocating them with words. Temperamentally we are ready to die for certain principles (or, in the case of overripe adults, send youngsters to die), but we show little inclination to advertise the reasons for dying.

A candidate could easily commit political suicide if he were to come up with an unconventional thought during a presidential tour.

Television should be our Lyceum, our Chautauqua, our Minsky's and our Camelot.

To perceive Christmas through its wrappings becomes more difficult with every year.

There is simply a better chance of doing well if the writer holds a steady course, enters the stream of English quietly, and does not thrash about.

Humor is like a frog. You can dissect it to see how it works, but by then, it's dead.

From morning till night, sounds drift from the kitchen, most of them familiar and comforting. . . . On days when warmth is the most important need of the human heart, the kitchen is the place you can find it; it dries the wet sock, it cools the hot little brain.