As advertising blather becomes the nation's normal idiom, language becomes printed noise.

Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal.

Some parents say it is toy guns that make boys warlike. But give a boy a rubber duck and he will seize its neck like the butt of a pistol and shout 'Bang!'

Americans are overreaching; overreaching is the most admirable and most American of the many American excesses.

The pursuit of perfection often impedes improvement.

Ronald Reagan has held the two most demeaning jobs in the country; President of the United States and radio broadcaster for the Chicago Cubs.

The unpleasant sound Bush is emitting as he traipses from one conservative gathering to another is a thin, tinny "arf" - the sound of a lap dog.

Sports is a moral undertaking because it requires of participants, and it schools spectators in the appreciation of, noble things - courage, grace under pressure, sportsmanship.

A politician's words reveal less about what he thinks about his subject than what he thinks about his audience.

A society that thinks the choice between ways of living is just a choice between equally eligible 'lifestyles' turns universities into academic cafeterias offering junk food for the mind.

Donald Trump is redundant evidence that if your net worth is high enough, your IQ can be very low and you can still intrude into American politics.

Western technology made slavery unnecessary

The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always asked to do things and you are not yet decrepit enough to turn them down.

Speaking from my own religious tradition in this Christmas season, 2,000 years ago a homeless woman gave birth to a homeless child in a manger because the inn was full.

I think back when I was kind of a crappy writer, I really did know my time was better spent working and having adventures and seeing the world.

It's the honesty you apply to your playing that makes music enjoyable. The style of the music has little to do with it. It's only honesty makes it beautiful.

I am a liberated teacher. A person who meditates with me, even though they may be thousands of miles away, will draw that light into them.

If we truly believe that every girl in every corner of the globe is worthy of an education as our own daughters and granddaughters are, then we need to deepen our commitment to these efforts.

I don't get angry often, but you mess with my wife, you mess with my kids, that will do it every time. Donald Trump, you're a snivelling coward and leave Heidi the hell alone.

FACT: Nothing in Obamacare forces people out of their health plans.

Neither do I acknowledge the right of Plymouth to the whole rock. No, the rock underlies all America: it only crops out here.