Is it possible to grow wiser without knowing it? One hopes so. We all hope so.

When riding my old Harley a ninety per at midnight down the Via Roma in Naples, I kept one consolation firmly in mind: If anything goes wrong, I'll never have time to regret it.

How did Haydn and Mozart produce such vast quantities of formally perfect art? They worked from a perfect formula. In music, Beethoven was the Great Emancipator.

Taxation: how the sheep are shorn.

I love America because it is a confused, chaotic mess - and I hope we can keep it this way for at least another thousand years. The permissive society is the free society.

In history-as-politics, the 'future' is that vacuum in time waiting to be filled with the antics of statesmen.

Lightning streaks like gunfire through the clouds, volleys of thunder shake the air.