When I need to work up my nerve to write a tough column, I try to think of myself as Emma Peel in a black leather catsuit.

When you're young, and even at times when you're older, it's hard to fathom this: What needs to be nurtured is the stuff that's different, that sets you apart from the pack, rather than the stuff that helps you blend in.

I think Hillary Clinton's a very clever politician but she would be too easy to stereotype the way John Kerry was.

I find having a column a very difficult form of journalism. I'm not a natural like Tom Friedman and Anna Quindlen.

Are women necessary? Not with Ava around

I feel like I owe it to the readers to try to pull back the veil and give them the honest version of what's going on. But it's not more fun. If Obama, as he does sometimes already, gets a little snippy with me about something I've written, you're thinking, 'Oh God, the president of the United States is already annoyed with me.'

Celebrity distorts democracy by giving the rich, beautiful, and famous more authority than they deserve.