As I listened, it occurred to me that interest in and affection for the animals that share the planet with us may be a more unifying force than any other.

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.

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

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.

The further you venture down a river the bigger the fish.

Friends help each other when they are...you know...going up international hit men and stuff.

The closer you are to God, the farther you are from the devil.

All representations of a thing are inherently abstract.

What right have you to take the word wealth, which originally meant well-being, and degrade and narrow it by confining it to certain sorts of material objects measured by money.

God will put up with a great many things in the human heart, but there is one thing that He will not put up with in it--a second place. He who offers God a second place, offers Him no place.

I went and saw him [ John Hurt ] here in L.A.He did a one-man Beckett show of Krapp's Last Tape. I went back and saw him afterwards, and what an actor he is. He is so gifted.

Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding. The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

The human digestive and visual systems did clearly evolve over a very long period.

He who relies solely on warlike measures shall be exterminated; he who relies solely on peaceful measures shall perish.