Dog parks are more cliquish than any other human gathering with the possible exception of seventh grade. Deal with it.

I approach stories as a private educational enterprise: I want to learn about something. I teach myself through research, reporting, and thinking, and then, when I feel like I know the story, I tell it to readers.

In my perfect world, we would establish perhaps four national zoos of unimpeachable quality and close the rest of them.

I love writing traditional magazine pieces, and especially their breadth of reporting and the deliberateness of the writing.

A snow day literally and figuratively falls from the sky, unbidden, and seems like a thing of wonder.

You can find out anything you want about a car now, and especially every bit of information about the price, without relying on the dealers.

I finally overcame my phobia, and now I approach flying with a sort of studied boredom - a learned habit, thanks to my learn-to-fly-calmly training - but like all former flying phobics, I retain a weird and feverish fascination with aviation news, especially bad news.