Dictating to dictators doesn't work; they are congenitally delusional about their own indispensability.

Novel writing should never be confused with journalism. Unfortunately, in the case of Primary Colors, a fair number of journalists confused.

Cynicism is what passes for insight among the mediocre.

Affirmative action was always racial justice on the cheap.

Diversity has been written into the DNA of American life; any institution that lacks a rainbow array has come to seem diminished, if not diseased.

Bush promised a foreign policy of humility and a domestic policy of compassion. He has given us a foreign policy of arrogance and a domestic policy that is cynical, myopic and cruel.

Anonymous sources are a practice of American journalism in the 20th and 21st century, a relatively recent practice. The literary tradition of anonymity goes back to the Bible.

I've been described as a grizzled political veteran.

You can't get all of your news from Jon Stewart, especially since it's a comedy show.

We journalists are never so idiotic as when we analyze things that we shouldn't be analyzing.

For those of us who consider ourselves political moderates, life is a dispiriting slog, a sorry mix of rectitude and ineptitude.

Mistakes are the portals of discovery.

To understand what a person is, it is necessary always to refer to what he may be in the future, for every state of the person is pointed in the direction of future possibilities.

The world around us   conforms to expectations      we place upon it.

Spontaneities offer one kind of pleasure and taste of sanctity, repetitions another equally pleasurable and holy.

The smaller the drink the clearer the head.

Alone everything changes. Some might call it distorted reality but it's exactly the place I need to be.

Life could do nothing for her, beyond giving time for a better preparation for death.

The marriage between the fantasy and the Westerns is that thing of, if people think you're the best gunslinger around, they're going to come looking for you.

The present moment, if you think about it, is the only time there is. No matter what time it is, it is always NOW!

Education helps one case cease being intimidated by strange situations.