The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.

You can’t replace people you love with other people…But you can trust that you’re not going to run out of people to love.

What I want is so simple I almost can't say it: elementary kindness.

There was a roaring in my ears and I lost track of what they were saying. I believe it was the physical manifestation of unbearable grief.

God, why does a mortal man have children? It is senseless to love anything this much.

The flowers were beaten down, their bent-over heads bejeweled with diamond droplets like earring on sad, rich widows

What I want is so simple I almost can’t say it: elementary kindness.

A dog can’t think that much about what he’s doing, he just does what feels right.

If Congress refuse to listen to and grant what women ask, there is but one course left then to pursue. What is there left for women to do but to become the mothers of the future government?

No one could have imagined a place like Havana, Cuba. It is absurdly contradictory, always arguing with itself over whether it is audacious or meek, heroic or stupid, beautiful or abhorrent.

War is not the only arena where peace is done to death.

The reason I wrote political satire was because I thought it - politics - was important... that public policy was important. Then I transitioned into books, then into radio.

Everyone who knew [Barack] Obama from being in Hyde Park knew he was the smartest guy in any room he walked into; a decent, compassionate, lovely person; pragmatic, middle-of-the-road and ambitious.

Its really hard to go out knowing that you are going to be the center of attention just about anywhere you go and that its not going to be in a positive way.

When did you throw yourselves away?

I'm a full-blooded Mexican. My mother was born in Zacatecas, Mexico, and my father - the son of Mexican immigrants - was born near Fresno, California.

Is anything accidental?

My gut sense is there's something necessary going on and if I'm too fearful or angry, I feel like I'm feeding it.