One challenge to the arts in America is the need to make the arts, especially the classic masterpieces, accessible and relevant to today's audience.

To communicate, put your words in order; give them a purpose; use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce.

In dealing with Syria's dictator...only force counts. No cease-fire was attainable in Lebanon until the 16-inch guns of the battleship New Jersey started shelling Syria's proxies; suddenly, sweet reason prevailed in Damascus.

Never put the story in the lead. Let 'em have a hot shot of ambiguity right between the eyes.

Better to be a jerk that knees than a knee that jerks.

In lieu of those checks and balances central to our legal system, non-citizens face an executive that is now investigator, prosecutor, judge, jury and jailer or executioner. In an Orwellian twist, Bush's order calls this Soviet-style abomination 'a full and fair trial.'

A book should have an intellectual shape and a heft that comes with dealing with a primary subject.