The dirty work at political conventions is almost always done in the grim hours between midnight and dawn. Hangmen and politicians work best when the human spirit is at its lowest ebb.

Is fuel efficiency really what we need most desperately? I say that what we really need is a car that can be shot when it breaks down.

Those who remember Washington's cold war culture in the 1980s will recall the shocked reactions to Reagan's intervention. People interested in foreign policy were astonished when in 1985 he met alone at Geneva - alone, not a single strategic thinker at his elbow! - with the Soviet Communist master Gorbachev.

The biographer's problem is that he never knows enough. The autobiographer's problem is that he knows too much.

Scientists have been struck by the fact that things that break down virtually never get lost, while things that get lost hardly ever break down.

Baltimore is permissiveness. The pleasures of the flesh, the table, the bottle, and the purse are tolerated with a civilized understanding.

The American press has the blues. Too many authorities have assured it that its days are numbered, too many good newspapers are in ruins.