To be an American is not...a matter of blood; it is a matter of an idea--and history is the image of that idea.

Goodness . . . You got to make it out of badness . . . Because there isn't anything else to make it out of.

I think the greatest curse of American society has been the idea of an easy millennialism -- that some new drug, or the next election or the latest in social engineering will solve everything.

History is not melodrama, even if it usually reads like that.

[A]nd soon now we shall go out of the house and go into the convulsion of the world, out of history into history and the awful responsibility of Time.

Just tell 'em you're gonna soak the fat boys and forget the rest of the tax stuff...Willie, make 'em cry, make 'em laugh, make 'em mad, even mad at you. Stir them up and they'll love it and come back for more, but, for heaven's sakes, don't try to improve their minds.

For whatever you live is life.