A president can't go to every memorial service.

We want laws to be applied predictably.

Barack Obama wants teacher service scholarships.

Members of royal families are born into a world of indulgence and entitlement, and the princelings who grow up that way may never have to develop any discipline.

Lyndon Johnson realized he really was President, that his identity had changed by President Kennedy’s shocking death, when aides who had been like family to him minutes before, stood in his presence on Air Force One.

Nixon to Clinton: “When seeking advice from people who are more experienced than you, tell them what you plan to do first, and then ask for their reaction. Don’t ask for their advice, and then ignore it. That way you save on bruised feelings.

Praise of blame in the moment means little: it is how their decisions play out over time that matters, and so the redemption they’re looking for is of a more lasting kind. They are one another’s peers; who else can really judge them?

Death will never be pretty – its sights and smells too close and crude. And it will never come under our control: it gallops where we tiptoe, rips up our routines, burns our very breath with its heat and sting.

A runner’s stride is not perfectly efficient.

Maybe as times get worse we get better. Our pain makes us feel other people’s too; our fear lets us practice valor; we are tense, and tender as well. And among the things we can no longer afford are things we never really wanted anyway...