What is it?” “A prayer.” “For a child?” She nodded. “For me?” Another nod. “On a tree?” “Trees spend all day looking up at God.

I never hear anything about education. Education - I guess it's just not sexy enough. And everybody claims to love their children and our children are the most important thing, but if that's the case, how come we never hear more about education as an election issue?

I hope you never hear those words. Your mom. She died. They are different than other words. They are too big to fit in your ears. They belong to some strange, heavy, powerful language that pounds away at the side of your head, a wrecking ball coming at you again and again, until finally, the words crack a hole large enough to fit inside your brain. And in so doing, they split you apart.

In a newspaper, you only have so much room. It teaches you the value of getting to the point, of not pampering yourself with your glorious writing. I've always been much more interested in one powerful sentence that stays with you. That's my style.

People are only mean when they're threatened, and that's what our culture does...And when you get threatened, you start looking out only for yourself. You start making money a god. It is all part of this culture.

The years after graduation hardened me into someone quite different from the strutting graduate who left campus that day headed for New York city, ready to offer the world his talent. The world, I discovered. was not all that interested.

There is everything you know and there is everything that happens. When the two do not line up, you make a choice.