The principal House sponsor (of the Defense of Marriage Act), Bob Barr of Georgia has been married three times--which raises the question of why the act doesn't contain a three-strikes-and-you're-out provision.

The most wonderful street in the universe is Broadway. It is a world within itself. High and low, rich and poor, pass along at a rate peculiar to New York, and positively bewildering to a stranger.

What was most striking about the Obama speech in Berlin was not anything he said so much as the alternative reality it fostered: many American children have never before seen huge crowds turn out abroad to wave American flags instead of burn them.

There’s nothing entertaining about watching goons hurl venomous slurs at congressmen like the civil rights hero John Lewis and the openly gay Barney Frank. How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn’t recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht.

Yul Brynner's performance in "The King and I," . . . can no longer be regarded as a feat of acting or even endurance. After 30-odd . . . Mr Brynner is, quite simply, The King.

To me, the fun part of both jobs is to always try to push the discussion and debate forward in some way. The most fun part of being a theater critic for the Times was always to try and champion something that maybe other people didn't like, or that was produced under obscure circumstances or had to fight for its life. And I would say in the column what I try to do is in some ways related in that I'm trying to fight for a point of view. I'm not trying to be a kingmaker in either job, and don't want to be, and shouldn't be.

The actor doesn't merely command the stage, he seems to own it by divine right.