Americans are overreaching; overreaching is the most admirable and most American of the many American excesses.

The proof of liberal virtue is generousity with other people's money.

If there were 10,000 U.S. forces ashore [in Lebanon], authorized to move about, there would be less risk to American lives than there is with an immobile force of 1,300.

As has been said, standards are always out of date - that is why we call them standards.

On a throne at the center of a sense of humor sits a capacity for irony. All wit rests on a cheerful awareness of life's incongruities. It is a gentling awareness, and no politician without it should be allowed near power.

It is extraordinary how extraordinary the ordinary person is.

Football combines the two worst things about America: it is violence punctuated by committee meetings.