People may think of Southern humor in terms of missing teeth and outhouse accidents, but the best of it is a rich vein running through the best of Southern literature.

That's American English for you: more roots than a mangrove swamp.

I studied French in high school and German in college and I once took a 24-hour Italian crash course. English has by far the most words in it of any other language. Our money might not be worth anything anymore, but the language is.

Many a person has been saved from summer alcoholism, not to mention hypertoxicity, by Dostoyevsky.

Perhaps the truth is that heavy literature blooms in extremes of temperature.

Obama's got a great sense of humor, but mainly he has a great thinking presence, which is uncommon. It's hard to imagine being able to do, think over answers and deliver them on television. If I were president I would constantly be spluttering.

The North isn't a place. It's just a direction out of the South.