Nationalism and patriotism are two sides of the same coin, and the most nationalistic / patriotic country in the last 300 years was Germany during the Third Reich.

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.

I don't consider Hillary Clinton to be the lesser of two evils.

The intelligent Trump supporter will be someone who is so cynical about politics that he wants the world blown up, and doesn't care if the person doing the blowing up is an obnoxious, infantile vulgarian. I don't know where to find these people. Do you?

I always love it when a small paper wins. When I was growing up in the Bronx, the editor of the Riverdale Press - a neighborhood rag - kept submitting his columns for a Pulitzer. We laughed and laughed at his ego. He finally won.

I don't think the people of Chicago should be robbed of their birthright to be perennial losers.

I really value unforgettable moments. Things you can tell people about. We have too few of them in our lives, and it is all too seldom that we can create one such moment for a stranger.