If Heaven is willing to sing to us, it is little to ask that we be ready to listen.

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

Studies show that the more often families eat together, the less likely kids are to smoke, drink, do drugs, get depressed, develop eating disorders and consider suicide, and the more likely they are to do well in school, delay having sex, eat their vegetables, learn big words and know which fork to use.

Praise of blame in the moment means little: it is how their decisions play out over time that matters, and so the redemption they're looking for is of a more lasting kind. They are one another's peers; who else can really judge them?

On a normal day, we value heroism because it is uncommon. On Sept. 11, we valued heroism because it was everywhere.

For God to be kept out of the classroom or out of America's public debate by nervous school administrators or overcautious politicians serves no one's interests. That restriction prevents people from drawing on this country's rich and diverse religious heritage for guidance, and it degrades the nation's moral discourse by placing a whole realm of theological reasoning out of bounds. The price of that sort of quarantine, at a time of moral dislocation, is - and has been - far too high.

You must get courageous men, men of strong views and let them debate and argue with each other.