Baseball exemplifies a tension in the American mind, the constant pull between our atomistic individualism and our yearning for community.

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.

Never doubt in the darkness what God has given us in the light.

Only the ocean kept the same rhythm. Crashing in and slowly pulling back out, it never lied, never changed. It tried to teach them a life of romantic consistency.

I'm very down-to-earth and approachable, and I can be one of the guys and watch sports... I like to cook - I'm like the girl next door.

There was that sense of we had turned the corner. All of that time, all of that work, all of that effort – we were poised to make that next jump.

The third stage is no thought. No thought is not the end of meditation. It is the beginning of higher meditation.

I have to say, opening up in New York taught me a lot about that level of attention to detail. London's a tough market, Paris is a tough market, but New York, well, that's extraordinary.

I want to get a job naming kitchen appliances. That seems easy; refrigerator, toaster, blender. You just say what the thing does and add "er".

I said,'Instead of going in the direction that a lot of the women singers are going in [revealing], I'll be very, very sexy under 18 pounds of chiffon and lace and velvet...I will have mystique.

It is an awesome thing to comprehend that what a human being dreams and imagines can be realized.

What good is a friend if you cant make an enemy of him?