The mugger who is arrested is back on the street before the police officer, but the person mugged may not be back on the street for a long time, if ever.

People expect Byzantine, Machiavellian logic from politicians. But the truth is simple. Trial lawyers learn a good rule: 'Don't decide what you don't have to decide.' That's not evasion, it's wisdom.

In this life, you should read everything you can read. Taste everything you can taste. Meet everyone you can meet. Travel everywhere you can travel. Learn everything you can learn. Experience everything you can experience.

For too many, the dream of economic mobility has been replaced with a nightmare of economic stagnation.

A shining city is perhaps all the president sees from the portico of the White House and the veranda of his ranch, where everyone seems to be doing well. But there's another part to the shining city. In this part of the city there are more poor than ever, more families in trouble, more and more people who need help but can't find it.

Way down deep the American people are afraid of an entangling relationship between formal religions - or whole bodies of religious belief - and government. Apart from constitutional law and religious doctrine, there is a sense that tells us it's wrong to presume to speak for God or to claim God's sanction of our particular legislation and his rejection of all other positions. Most of us are offended when we see religion being trivialized by its appearance in political throw-away pamphlets.

Entertainers and sports figures achieve fame and wealth but find the world empty and dull without the solace and stimulation of drugs.