Six months of looking for a job had made me an expert at picking out the people who, like me, were hurrying up to wait - in somebody's outer anything for a chance to make it through their inner doors to prove that you could type two words a minute, or not drool on your blouse while answering difficult questions about your middle initial and date of birth.

That's one of the privileges of old age - you can give plenty of advice 'cause most folks think that's all you got left anyway.

The intelligence community, for the most part, has no accountability at all; to the Congress, to us the American people, and so they feel that they above the law.

black isn't beautiful and it isn't ugly - black is! It's not kinky hair and it's not straight hair - it just is.

It's as if I've arrived in a place where it's all spirit and no body -- an overwhelming sense of calm . . . I actually began to feel blessed.

Spoiled. That's all it's about - can't live without this, can't live without that. You can live without anything you weren't born with, and you can make it through on even half of that.

Not only is your story worth telling, but it can be told in words so painstakingly eloquent that it becomes a song.