Baseball is what we were, and football is what we have become.

Appliances have idiosyncracies, just like us. Unfortunately they have picked up our less attractive traits – they are proud, spiteful, and unforgiving.

I am hoping for better times. That’s how you know us hapless gardeners – by our dirty fingernails and our absurd, unquenchable optimism about next year.

If there is a secret to writing, I haven’t found it yet. All I know is you need to sit down, clear your mind, and hang in there.

Baseball is what we were, football is what we have become.

You need the will to disarm the civilian population. If we can do it in Somalia, we can do it here.

Dogs, bless them, operate on the premise that human beings are fragile and require incessant applications of affection and reassurance. The random lick of a hand and the furry chin draped over the instep are calculated to let the shaky owner know that a friend is nearby.

And the propensity of weak and empty people to follow a leader into the darkness from which there is no return is still flourishing, as ever.

We have a new class in this country: the deserving rich. ... The deserving rich do nice things for each other. Comforting the unafflicted is something that comes naturally to them.

My friend Phil has a theory that the Lord, having made teenagers, felt constrained to make amends and so created the golden retriever.