This is how the great post-partisan, post-racial, New Politics presidency ends - not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with a desperate election-eve plea for ethnic retribution.

When under attack, no country is obligated to collect permission slips from allies to strike back.

A drone is a high-tech version of an old army and a musket. It ought to be used in Somalia to hunt bad guys, but not in America. I don't want to see it hovering over anybody's home.

Chess: It's like alcohol. It's a drug. I have to control it, or it could overwhelm me. I have a regular Monday night game at my home, and I do play a little online.

To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.

There's a reason why in New York Harbor we have the Statue of Liberty, not the Statue of Equality.

If fences don't work, why is there one around the White House.

In explaining any puzzling Washington phenomenon, always choose stupidity over conspiracy, incompetence over cunning. Anything else gives them too much credit.

Better to be paralyzed from the neck down than the neck up

Washington is the only place in the world where a gaffe is when a politician accidently speaks the truth.

Obsession with self is the motif of our time.

The wisdom that comes from being conscious of the real threats to you and your mission will sharpen your deliberateness in decision & choice-making, associations and positioning.

I hated myself for needing him at such times, for craving his strength whenever I felt upset.

We are also further than ever from equality of opportunity.

I was faced more with apathy than opposition.

My mother's illness fitted into this protest against the treatment of the sick who could not pay, the inefficiency of commercialism, the waste, the extravagance, and the poverty.

In the 1960s, if you were a blue collar worker or uneducated, and you had an injury on the job, the company basically dismissed you.

Banks need to think through their ethics very carefully, and many have done so. I dont know any bank that dismisses the concept of ethical banking.

If we care about the average working American, then Wal-Mart matters. A lot.

Works of art cannot save us. They can simply render us more sensitive to what needs to be repaired.

If you cannot control your emotions, you cannot control your money.