Friendships are the family we make - not the one we inherit. I've always been someone to whom friendship, elective affinities, is as important as family.

Out-of-step intellectuals like Noam Chomsky and the deceased Edward Said have often been dismissed as crazy extremists, 'anti-American,' and in Mr. Said's case even, absurdly, as apologists for Palestinian 'terrorism.'

I learned: the first lesson of my life: nobody can face the world with his eyes open all the time.

Free societies are societies in motion, and with motion comes friction.

My heart broke open and history fell in.

The great concern is that year after year, rising numbers of journalists are being killed in pursuit of their work. They are increasingly seen as not being neutral but rather as combatants by one side or the other.

A man who catches History's eye is thereafter bound to a mistress from whom he will never escape.