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.

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.

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.

Here's a very good rule of thumb in politics: losing begets losing.

From this point forward, you don’t even know how to quit in life.”~ Aaron Lauritsen, ‘100 Days Drive

The most imaginative people are the most credulous, for them everything is possible.

I've still never gotten behind the defense and been caught.

When you feel your book is the height of irrelevance you can return to the excitement of the daily news.

We will have equality when a female schlemiel moves ahead as fast as a male schlemiel.

The thing with Disney songs is they're very manipulative, very sentimental, but they do get you, you know - there's a kind of sadness to them and that kind of music doesn't really exist any more.

I have my own religious bond with the God in my own head.

If there's any single talent a writer needs, it's persistence. If you can keep at your writing and you can learn as you write, you can tell any story you want to tell.

None can be pleased without praise, and few can be praised without falsehood.

May peace-dreamers And peace-lovers Occupy the length and breadth Of the world.