I adore the work of Stephen Sondheim. I like musicales in general. They make surprisingly great running tapes.

Children can be happy when their parents are miserable. But a parent is never happier than her unhappiest child.

I adore the work of Stephen Sondheim. I like musicales in general. They make surprisingly great running tapes.

I carry in my datebook a piece of paper that my mother copied out for me, from the 1840 Census. Hardy Callaway Culver of Hancock County, Georgia, had 42 slaves, 31 "employed in agriculture." Culver was my great-great-great grandfather. I carry this piece of paper with me every day because I don't want to forget. I don't know what to do with the information, but I don't want to forget it.

There was no protection, no quota system when it came to luck. It was like that moment in math when a child learns that the odds of heads or tails is always one-in-two, no matter how many times one has flipped the coin and gotten heads. Every flip, the odds are the same. Every day, you could be unlucky all over again.

There are, of course, an infinite number of places where one is not, yet only one place where one actually is.

Whatever you want, at any moment, someone else is getting it. Whatever you have, someone else is longing for.