[On journalists:] We are a noisy, imperfect lot, struggling to scribble what has been called the first draft of history.

Eric Schmidt looks innocent enough, with his watercolor blue eyes and his tiny office full of toys and his Google campus stocked with volleyball courts and unlocked bikes and wheat-grass shots and cereal dispensers and Haribo Gummi Bears and heated toilet seats and herb gardens and parking lots with cords hanging to plug in electric cars.

For two centuries, the South has feared a takeover by blacks or the feds. In Obama, they have both.

Americans want to be protected, but not at the cost of vitiating the values that make us Americans.

Celebrity is the religion of our time.

It takes a lot of adrenaline and fear to make me actually write.

Perpetual optimism is annoying. It is a sign that you are not paying attention.