The best advice I can give anybody about going out into the world is this: Don't do it. I have been out there. It is a mess....

Listen once in a while. It's amazing what you can hear.

It was clear soon after his election that Obama, like FDR, wanted to start dealing with the economic crisis immediately after his inauguration.

Strategic thinkers were naturally rattled to find this outsider fooling around with their work. They had been thinking strategically when Reagan was just another movie actor playing opposite a chimpanzee, for heaven's sake. They think Reagan is too naive, too innocent, to grasp the intellectual complexities of cold war strategy.

Reality is the only obstacle to happiness.

Letter writing was clearly important to Reagan. Even as president he kept dashing off letters to friends, pen pals, media people, statesmen, critics, and the kind of people who write to presidents never expecting a reply.

People seem to enjoy things more when they know a lot of other people have been left out of the pleasure.