A liberal is a person who believes that water can be made to run uphill. A conservative is someone who believes everybody should pay for his water. I'm somewhere in between: I believe water should be free, but that water flows downhill.

I saw Chungking for the first time more than 40 years ago - a city of hills and mists, of grays and lavenders, two rivers shaping it to a point and the cliff rising above me like a challenge.

Politics in America is the binding secular religion.

The best time to listen to a politician is when he's on a stump on a street corner in the rain late at night when he's exhausted. Then he doesn't lie.

When a reporter sits down at the typewriter, he’s nobody’s friend.

Although Christianity has never been the guarantee of a democratic state anywhere in the world, no democracy has ever thrived successfully for any period of time outside of Christian influence.

The American dream is not over. America is an adventure.