When Obama was inaugurated, he and his team had an insight - though whether the insight was conscious or not I don't know. But it was this: The TARP $700 billion price tag was a new kind of model.

Every great political campaign rewrites the rules; devising a new way to win is what gives campaigns a comparative advantage against their foes.

Conservatives must avoid the siren song of schism, or all is lost.

Comedians and impressionists used to be two different showbiz animals entirely, but now there's no such thing as a comedian who doesn't do impressions.

Pop culture is a reflection of social change, not a cause of social change.

There's no light at the end of the tunnel in the Republican message, no promise of better things to come. There's only the present stagnation, followed by a slow decline.

I was wholeheartedly attracted to the conservative atmosphere that permeated the city of Washington.

I look at 'The New York Review of Books.' It's what it has been for 35 or 40 years, which is a highly sophisticated vehicle for anti-American self-hatred.

While negativity is politically useful, it is also demoralizing unless it is accompanied - and to some extent overshadowed - by elevated and inspiring ideas about the American future.

Your race and gender don't change, but you can choose to change your political affiliation at will.

The problem is that borrowing money to pay back more borrowed money that will oblige you in the future to borrow even more money doesn't sound kosher. Because it isn't.

Answer only when asked, otherwise do not say anything. Don't say a thing in this world. To tell [give advice] is the biggest disease. Your beard grows without you saying anything, doesn't it?

Perhaps that's what she caught, not Life Fatigue but just grief over a broken heart--and the bitterness that comes with being cheated too early of something true--like a young husband's love.

Avoid hating people because you might have destroyed the bridge you have just used to cross the river

Men make angry music and it's called rock-and-roll women include anger in their vocabulary and suddenly they're angry and militant.

We are His greatest handiwork even though we are still a work in progress.

Children don’t need beating. They need love and encouragement. They need fathers to whom they can look with respect rather than fear. Above all, they need example.

I don't like abrasion while I'm working. I don't thrive on chaos. I enjoy what I'm doing, and it seems to work better when I am enjoying it.

Your marriage goes to a whole new level. You not only fall in love with your wife in a new way, but you're forced to pull together. You have to become a united front.

I am from the inner city, the ghetto. If I can use my platform to carry on a legacy and talk about something that's real, I have to do that, period.

I am not by any stretch of the imagination a tidy person, and the piles of unread books on the coffee table and by my bed have a plaintive, pleading quality to me - 'Read me, please!'