Best thing about Al Smith dinner: Cardinal Dolan got the candidates together for a brief prayer before going out on the stage.

I'm reluctant to draw many conclusions from private correspondence leaked without permission.

[Pope Francis] has reminded us that the way we live our lives is the most important expression of our Catholic identity.

To the extent that we sow love where there is hate and light where there is darkness, each in his or her own walk in life, we can heal, enlighten, and unify.

We have perhaps all said things in unguarded moments that we would not want printed in newspapers.

Worst thing about Al Smith dinner : it was another reminder of how far we are from the amity between opposing sides that is needed for effective governance.

I've never met anyone who has changed his mind or deepened his faith because he has been confronted with such angry condemnations.

No doubt the [presedential] campaigns have reflected some anxiety, anger, and resentment in the nation at large, and we must try to understand these attitudes in the electorate.

You aren't free until everything you obtain is free.

One character all messages had in common was vague generality. "Fly away with me, " a tussie-mussie might suggest, but never "Meet me at the railway depot at six-thirty.

Justice to others and to ourselves is the same; that we cannot define our duties by mathematical lines ruled by the square, but must fill with them the great circle traced by the compasses

I make solutions that nobody wants to problems that don't exist.

Although the masters make the rules for the wise men and the fools, I've got nothing, Ma, to live up to.

I rarely believe anything, because at the time of believing I am not really there to believe.

This letter really touched my heart. Sabrina says when she lost all her hair during chemo, she wore the cap I gave her.

Every nation determines its own destiny; the clever the nation, the better the fate!

I want to leave something behind when I go; some small legacy of truth, some word that will shine in a dark place.

The path up is the path down. The way forward is the way back. The universe inside is outside but the universe outside is inside.