Victory has 1,000 fathers; defeat has 1,000 kibitzers.

After immersing myself in the mysteries of the Electoral College for a novel I wrote in the '90s, I came away believing that the case for scrapping it is less obvious than I originally thought.

The niftiest turn of phrase, the most elegant flight of rhetorical fancy, isn't worth beans next to a clear thought clearly expressed.

Somebody is going to have to do fancy footwork to make sure Elizabeth and John Edwards get their prime-time shot .

More things in politics happen by accident or exhaustion than happen by conspiracy.

Something about her eyes or voice has always suggested the hint of a free spirit, trapped in a Peck and Peck cage, dreaming of making rude noises at public gatherings of Republicans.

In every debate, whatever the format, whatever the questions, there is one and only one way to identify the winner: Who commands the room? Who drives the narrative? Who is in charge?

History doesn't turn on a dime; it turns on a plugged nickel.

F.D.R. had to deal with Southern segregationists - and outright racists - who held power in Congress, so he had to yield to that power in order to get his New Deal legislation passed.

In politics, Bugs Bunny always beats Daffy Duck. Daffy's always going berserk, jumping up and down, yelling. Bugs's got that sly smile, like he always knows what's up, like nothing can ruffle him.

In another life, before taking the veil of journalistic purity, I practiced the black arts of a political operative, including 'debate prep.

Is the hell we know better than a heaven we don't know?

One word is enough to destroy an entire city provided that word is backed by anger. Drop down the bullets of anger

The good news is that there is one kind of food you can never have too much of. The best way to fully recover from a food addiction or body-image problem is to fill up on the Lord.

You can teach a bubbly person to repair shoes, but you can't put the personality into a grumpy cobbler.John Timpson

Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side.

Know yourself and fit yourself to new fashions. For there is a new ruler among the gods.

In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved.

What you have to be, you have to live whatever you do all day long. I always told the artists, every time you're on stage, it's nothing but a dress rehearsal.

The road to nowhere leads to me.

The Church must be forever building, for it is forever decaying within and attacked from without.