Kids are more nimble than wise.

If the Presidents Club had a seal, around the ring would be three words: cooperation, competition, and consolation. On the one hand, the presidents have powerful motives—personal and patriotic—to help one another succeed and comfort one another when they fail. But at the same time they all compete for history’s blessing.

I would like to see every newspaper and every magazine have a network of bureaus all over the world, gathering news.

Some Christians worried about a faith that was so embracing as to be meaningless, that exalted not the Almighty so much as the American way of life. When civil religion bleached the challenge from faith and left behind a watery patriotism, there was room for concern.

Death will never be pretty - its sights and smells too close and crude. And it will never come under our control: it gallops where we tiptoe, rips up our routines, burns our very breath with its heat and sting.

For the truly faithful, no miracle is necessary. For those who doubt, no miracle is sufficient.

There may be no less original idea than the notion that our hearts hold dominion over our heads.