A day spent praising the earth and lamenting man's pollutionist history makes you feel like a superior, sensitive soul.

Sending grown-ups up the wall is one of the things adolescence is all about. A few years ago it was done with rock 'n' roll music. Now at least they can do it quietly with a home computer.

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

Anticipating that most poetry will be worse than carrying heavy luggage through O'Hare Airport, the public, to its loss, reads very little of it.

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

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.

Etiquette is the grease that makes it possible for all of us to rub together without unnecessary overheating.