Schools are no longer legally segregated, but because of residential patterns, housing discrimination, economic disparities and long-held custom, they most emphatically are in reality.

There are few things more dangerous than a mixture of power, arrogance and incompetence.

There is nothing more American than brutal violence. The country was built on it, revels in it and shows every evidence of clinging to it with the crazed, destructive strength of an obsessive lover.

The soldiers in Iraq are fighting, suffering and dying . . . anonymously and pointlessly, while the rest of us are free to buckle ourselves into the family vehicle and head off to the malls and shop.

I get a headache when I hear supporters of this endless warfare complaining about the federal budget deficits. They're like arsonists complaining about the smell of smoke in the neighborhood.

I think the Republican Party is... accurately defined as a party that looks out for the interests of the very wealthy.

No man runs the race until he sees the dream.

Morino: What does the kidnapper do with those things?Yuka: Those things?Morino: You know, the stinky things with four legs that make a lot of

The hardest thing in comedy is to have the biggest laugh at the end, and it’s the most satisfying thing.

You think you got something big to say? Something momentous? Or is it what you had to memorize in order to escape the men with lightning in their eyes?

Scientists are treacherous allies on committees, for they are apt to change their minds in response to arguments.

I've always been fascinated by the operation of memory - the way in which it is not linear but fragmented, and its ambivalence.

To know the truth of history is to realize its ultimate myth and its inevitable ambiguity.

It's just like with people. You're going to get along better working with them - human or equine - if you ask politely rather than demand that they do things.

The Vietnam memorial is a masterpiece. The names of the dead are listed there, chronologically. Just the names.

We shape our homes and then our homes shape us.