America has faced much more difficult times, including potential national extinction, without flinching.

It is impossible to exaggerate the wide, and widening, gulf between the American attitude on the Iraq war and the view from our friends across the Atlantic.

Conventional wisdom holds that setting a timetable for getting American troops out of Iraq would be a mistake.

Currently, 94 out of 100 of us pay the Social Security tax all year round.

Those who actually hate animals to the point of being cruel to them are outcasts to the rest of us, no matter where in the world they live.

Perhaps our Irish friends should not so completely turn their backs on their historical dishes, no matter how many jokes they might have to endure.

Respect and affection for animals, particularly those who share our homes, recognize no geographic borders.

A salute from this corner to President Bush for saying he was willing to investigate raising or eliminating the cap on salaries subject to the Social Security tax.

For some reason, on that sparkling afternoon last week, I actually saw the coal that was passing by and it set me to thinking how important coal was to our everyday lives when I was a little boy.

In economic panics throughout history, the wiping out of the savings accounts of lower earners and the middle class has often led to social revolution, sometimes violent upheavals.

In matters large and small, many people seemed concerned about churlishness, an ugliness in our relationships that appears to be increasing rather than decreasing.

Walking away from my desert companions feels like cutting off a limb. How does one say good-bye to an arm? One doesn't, I suppose. One pretends it isn't happening.

Environmental pollution is an incurable disease. It can only be prevented.

You have to win something for people to think about you.

All things human change.

I wouldn't go back and change anything.

When I did the sitcom I was too naive. I thought, Well, they know what they're talking about, let's do that.

I was a strange, loud little kid who could sit at the piano and kill a Beethoven piece.

I've always known where I wanted to go in life.

The task of the architectural project is to reveal, through the transformation of form, the essence of the surrounding context.

I think the most common meme is that it's too difficult to change. It's too risky to change. My nature doesn't allow me to change.