You know you've reached a new plateau of group mediocrity when even a Canadian is alarmed by your lack of individuality.

Owen is the most Hitchcockian preschooler I ever met. He's three. He knows maybe ninety word and one of them is 'crypt'?

I didn't come from any kind of academic background, but I lived in a college town and I knew people who weren't without pretense. There was this idea in the town that if something was European it would be good.

Behind every bad law, a deep fear.

Being a nerd, which is to say going too far and caring too much about a subject, is the best way to make friends I know.

The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Civil War-when I really think about them they all seem about as likely as the parting of the Red Sea.

Assassins and presidents invite the same basic question: Just who do you think you are?