As a schoolboy, poetry seemed defined by preciousness. It was all very rarefied.

Even for the most excitable preacher, there was nothing inherently sinful about a waffle.

Great art has dreadful manners. The greatest paintings grab you in a headlock, rough up your composure, and then proceed in short order to re-arrange your reality.

Charlie Hebdo: Satire was the father of true political freedom, born in the 18th century; the scourge of bigots and tyrants. Sing its praises.

Histories never conclude; they just pause their prose. Their stories are, if they are truthful, untidy affairs, resistant to windings-up and sortings-out. They beat raggedly on into the future.

Irreverence is the lifeblood of freedom.

What can art really do in the face of atrocity?

The irony about Charles II is not that he came to the throne because England needed a successor to Charles I, but because England needed a successor to Oliver Cromwell.

There are some places where history just grabs you by the jugular. This is one of them.

Nations don't start out. There is not a particular moment when they unveil the essence of themselves. They are always a work in progress.

But it struck me that the extreme violence and cruelty of the English Civil War had gone understated.

I pulled out my mp3 player and stuck the buds in, and letting out a big breath, I started to scroll through my music for something appropriate to kill by. John Tesh, it is.

Hestia shook her head. "I am here because when all else fails, when all the other mighty gods have gone off to war, I am all that's left. Home. Hearth. I am the last Olympian

Have faith in your abilities.

Much suspected by me, Nothing proved can be

The movement of the stream is distinct from the river bed, although it must adopt its winding course.

After all we are merely the servants of the public, in spite of our M.D.'s and our hospital appointments.

Where was Paris Hilton a year ago? She's a fabulous character to write about.

The object of mathematical rigor is to sanction and legitimize the conquests of intuition, and there was never any other object for it.

Every woman should own a shirtdress

When I pick up the guitar, it's a melody, and that's what drives the lyrics. It's bits and pieces of truth, but it is storytelling.