There is an absolutely fundamental hostility on the part of totalitarian regimes toward religion.

There is no pure free-market economy.

A government is not legitimate merely because it exists.

I was a woman in a man's world. I was a Democrat in a Republican administration. I was an intellectual in a world of bureaucrats. I talked differently. This may have made me a bit like an ink blot.

Words can destroy. What we call each other ultimately becomes what we think of each other, and it matters.

I conclude that it is a fundamental mistake to think that salvation, justice, or virtue come through merely human institutions.

Democrats can't get elected unless things get worse-and things won't get worse unless they get elected.

Truth, which is important to a scholar, has to be concrete. And there is nothing more concrete than dealing with babies, burps and bottles, frogs and mud.

History is a better guide than good intentions.

What takes place in the Security Council more closely resembles a mugging than either a political debate or an effort at problem-solving.

Power ... is not an end in itself, but is an instrument that must be used toward an end.

Never say no to coffee

I started out as a writer. Poetry and prose and also kind of satirical David Sedaris-esque stuff.

In English every word can be verbed.

If you don't like my fire, then don't come around. Cause I'm gonna burn one down.

I guess writing is a kind of therapy in the sense that there are things you need to say and you say them, and better out than in.

Is this what it means to go back to square one? Most likely. He had nothing left to lose, other than his life.

We can't wait around for Superman to come in here and save the town, save the team. It's up to us to get it done.

I love my parents in the way most children would: for having been there at every point in my youth and childhood, ready to pick me up when I fell and support me when I stumbled.

It is not love that matters, Mistress Boy, it is what you choose to do with it. What’d you choose to do with yours?

The fallacy is that you have to hold some sort of stake in the grief or horror in order to write about it - I think the opposite is true.