None of the ways people were talking about September 11 felt right to me. I don't buy into the way George W. Bush talks about it. I don't buy into the way the 9/11 commission talks about it. It isn't that I don't believe them. It's just that they're not the tellings for me.

Our relationship to the environment matters, our relationship to animals matters, and our relationship to culture matters.

I'm sorry for my inability to let unimportant things go, for my inability to hold on to the important things.

I am willing to be annoying if that's what was necessary.

One day you will do things for me that you hate. That is what it means to be family.

There's nothing good about being certain about things. And I don't think there's any real talent in using language in a manipulative way, with phrases like "tax relief" or "Social Security reform." It's politically clever, but it's also completely disingenuous, and it's not something to aspire to.

The end of the world has come often, and continues to come.