I find having a column a very difficult form of journalism. I'm not a natural like Tom Friedman and Anna Quindlen.

The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for.

[On journalists:] We are a noisy, imperfect lot, struggling to scribble what has been called the first draft of history.

Journalism, spooked by rumors of its own obsolescence, has stopped believing in itself. Groans of doom alternate with panicked happy talk.

The sounds of silence are a dim recollection now, like mystery, privacy and paying attention to one thing — or one person — at a time.

Wooing the press is an exercise roughly akin to picnicking with a tiger. You might enjoy the meal, but the tiger always eats last.

Celebrity distorts democracy by giving the rich, beautiful, and famous more authority than they deserve.

When I need to work up my nerve to write a tough column, I try to think of myself as Emma Peel in a black leather catsuit.

If you're famous enough, the rules don't apply.

A friendship between reporter and source lasts only until it is profitable for one to betray the other.

Celebrity is the religion of our time.

You'll see so much more beauty in the world if you can accept that there is good in every little thing around you.

To submit one’s self to one’s gift is to submit oneself to education and self-development and to devote enough time to improve one’s gift

It doesn't make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead.

Mediocrity comforts the masses. Mediocrity is a likeable attribute.

I suppose that a lifetime spent hiding one's erotic truth could have a cumulative renunciatory effect. Sexual shame is in itself a kind of death.

A certain luxury when you get to writing a novel is to have the space to have your characters just banter.

When the bottom falls out and disappointments come, you will learn what you believe, what you love, and what you treasure.

The man who has a house everywhere has a home nowhere

Give dysgenic groups [people with 'bad genes'] in our population their choice of segregation or [compulsory] sterilization.

We need prefab housing, we need to repair what can be repaired. We have appealed to the whole world to ship tents and blankets to Pakistan.