Television has the obvious benefits of regularity and intimacy.

People think they have to be ambitious. But at a certain age, all you want is to be around nice, decent people.

My hunch is that pop culture began to stagnate the moment Americans started to love the past more than they did the future.

As you get older and fatter, good clothes can hide a lot.

The danger of leaving overwhelming wealth and power in the grasp of a small minority is a lesson that leaders such as ousted Tunisian president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and deposed Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak have learned a little too late, as the demonstrations across the Arab world indicate.

The fact is that movie stars are as insecure as the rest of us - if not more so. Many live in a luxurious bubble in which their best friends are their trainer, their hairdresser, their publicist, and their Kabbalah instructor.

Conservatives define themselves more by their hatred of liberals than anything else, and, conversely, liberals by their distaste for conservatives.