Mostly, you become a writer not because you want to get rich or famous, but because you have to write; because there is something inside that must come out.

Reporters are not merely recording devices that take down what people say and repeat it in print; we are expected to use our knowledge and experience both for triage - deciding what's important to cover and what isn't - and for contextualizing, analyzing and such.

We want to believe that the world is understandable and controllable and unthreatening, that if we follow the rules, we'll be okay. So, when this kind of thing happens to other people, we need to put them in a different category from us. We don't want to resemble them, and the fact that we might is too terrifying to deal with. So, they have to be monsters.

America is an incredibly polarized country politically. I think ANY Republican would start out with 42 percent of the vote.

I do not believe in public shaming. I do believe that young adults go to college to learn things, and that this process will almost inevitably result in their making mistakes and misjudgments and otherwise acting badly.

I personally favor old mechanical watches, but my snobbery does not extend to demanding that all people wear them. My snobbery demands that no one wear a digital.

I think Trump wants to be dictator. I don't think the courts will allow him to be, and I think that after months of revolting sycophancy, neither will Congress. He will sink to such a popularity trough that even those spineless, craven gophers will cave.