I could get a better education interviewing John Steinbeck than talking to an English professor about novels.

Previously known for its six syllables of sweetness and light, reconciliation has become the political fighting word of the year.

The trick is to start early in our careers the stress-relieving avocation that we will need later as a mind-exercising final vocation. We can quit a job, but we quit fresh involvement at our mental peril.

On the analogy of 'Dictionary Johnson,' we call Fred R. Shapiro, editor of the just-published Yale Book of Quotations (well worth the $50 price), 'Quotationeer Shapiro.' Shapiro does original research, earning his 1,067-page volume a place on the quotation shelf next to Bartlett's and Oxford's.

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

Never feel guilty about reading, it's what you do to do your job.

At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.