Mom was a smoker. My grandfather was a smoker. My aunts were smokers. My uncles were smokers. I don't know any smokers now, not even my mom.

Like most of the educated, I do harbor a fondness for the sins of my ignorant past.

When 'The Awakening' was published it was considered so scandalous it was banned in the author's home-town library, and she herself was barred from the Fine Arts Club in the same city. What the novel has to offer, among other things, is honesty.

Critical thinking is to a liberal education as faith is to religion. ... the converse was true also - faith is to a liberal education as critical thinking is to religion, irrelevant and even damaging.

Progressivism is usually seen as a stepping back from individualism into a progressive community...

A love story, at least a convincing one, requires three elements - the lover, the beloved, and the adventures they have together.

The desire to write a novel is the single required prerequisite for writing a novel.