The truth is I would do my job for free! I love it every day. If you can possibly choose a vocation that's an avocation, a job that's really a hobby, then you'll be way ahead of the game. You should not pick an occupation because your think your parents want you to do it, or because you think it's the noble thing to do. You should only pick a job because it turns you on.

If America has a civic religion, the First Amendment is its central article of faith.

Politicians will not put forth programs aimed at the problems of poor blacks while their turnout remains so low.

The thing about living in a village at the foot of a mountain is that the world for you becomes, without thinking about it, self-contained. People are of two kinds, really: from the Valley, and from Elsewhere.

My father was the funniest man I ever met. He made Redd Foxx look like an undertaker.

What's fascinated me from the time I was a little kid was the way we construct our lives through stories.

All historians generalize from particulars. And often, if you look at a historian's footnotes, the number of examples of specific cases is very, very small.