Cooking is not a science but an art, mistakes are okay, messes are fine—the pleasure is in the creating and the sharing of the result.

I still have my little red hardcover notebook—spine now held in place by packing tape, pages dotted with cooking stains—filled with her loving instructions for mandelbrot, nut cake, and strudel.

Self respect and reality is tough rival when it comes to balance it honestly.

It is unfortunate that for some, kindness is an unwarranted expenditure, compassion an avoidable weakness, and love an unnecessary gamble.

Behind every specific call, whether it is to teach or preach or write or encourage or comfort, there is a deeper call that gives shape to the first: the call to give ourselves away - the call to die.

But it goes without saying that Michael Jordan could never date Pamela Anderson. That would cause the apocalypse.

The more we seek exclusivity in friendship, the more it becomes obligatory and the less likely it is to fulfill the wonderful vision of what true friendship can be.

To enjoy the world without judgment is what a realized life is like.

It just makes me wonder what subject you blame for talking to me every night.' I'm still settling on an answer for that one. Probably Chemistry. Jesus Christ. I can't believe I just wrote that.

Marriage is one of the most sacred human institutions. I asked our Senators, as many South Dakotans have done, to protect marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

The training and equipping of Iraqi security forces should be accelerated.

The usual complaint is, 'I have no other way of earning a living.' The harsh reply can be, 'Do you have to live?'