The life-changing encounters that John Quincy Adams made as an adolescent on his own in Stockholm began with a friendship he struck up at a bookstore.

The author points out that the moral failure of Abigail Adams' brother focused her on disciplining her children, and herself, so that they did not come to the same end.

No sermon I have heard or read touched my heart with half the force of this puppet show. John Quincy Adams

Shakespeare's work had a liberating influence.

John Quincy Adams strove to escape commonplace thoughts.

Rather than pound or a national mind that he believed had been closed by his critics, John Quincy Adams decided to seek a place in the is the esteem of future generations.

The two grappled in the quiet of old-fashioned personal diplomacy.

John Quincy Adams' depression was treated by his aunt with some reliable remedies, first sleep and then compassion. She said, " He was half cared for by having someone to care for him.

The president notices that when he takes off his coat to dig, people take more notice of the visual than they did his preceding remarks.

He must become an apprentice to ordinary life.

I carry too much of the week into the Sabbath, and too little of the Sabbath into the week. John Quincy Adams

Philosophy cannot be taught

Being crazy doesn't mean being mentally challenged. Maybe it just means being you...amplified a 100 times over.

Be on guard, my soul, of complicating your environment so that you have neither time nor room for growth!

The biblical texts that we Christians have used for centuries to justify our hostility toward the Jews need to be banished forever from the sacred writings of the Christian church.

America is a great country, and we've done a lot of good in the world. But we are a collection of people, not saints. We have our own sins to atone for.

Critics of Donald Trump take him literally, but not seriously. His supporters take him seriously, but not literally.

Everything that's fun in life is dangerous. Horse races, for instance, are very dangerous. But attempt to design a safe horse and the result is a cow ... It is impossible to be alive and safe.

I don't think comic timing is the same as music timing, but I definitely find that I've learned from just writing in general that songs can be narrative without having a story.

The plea of necessity, that eternal argument of all conspirators.