“Head lice have their own animal-rights group, or may as well. The National Pediculosis Association doesn’t exactly advocate letting lice live with dignity, but it does oppose pediculicidal treatments.”

Feeling good about government is like looking on the bright side of any catastrophe. When you quit looking on the bright side, the catastrophe is still there.

The importance of local governance may not be obvious to an America accustomed to treating city and state downfalls with doses of federal comeuppance. Sometimes there’s a reason for that – the Civil War. More often, all reasoning seems absent – No Child Left Behind.

I like to think of my behavior in the sixties as a ‘learning experience.’ Then again, I like to think of anything stupid I’ve done as a ‘learning experience.’ It makes me feel less stupid.

The world is being run by irresponsible spoiled brats.

New Hampshire polling data are unreliable because, when you call the Granite State’s registered Republicans and independents in the middle of dinner and ask them who they’re going to vote for, they have a mouth full of mashed potatoes and you can’t understand what they say.

The 20th century was a test bed for big ideas – fascism, communism, the atomic bomb.

Call a man ‘ignorant,’ and you have license to show the world your vast fund of knowledge and wise him up.

There isn’t much room for an outsider point of view in print any more.

The C student starts a restaurant. The A student writes restaurant reviews.

A U.S. dollar is an IOU from the Federal Reserve Bank. It’s a promissory note that doesn’t actually promise anything. It’s not backed by gold or silver.

I’m old enough to remember when the air over American cities was a lot dirtier than it is now.

When you’re a war correspondent, the reader is for you because the reader is saying, ‘Gee, I wouldn’t want to be doing that.’ They’re on your side.

When I’m in the car, I want the only one shouting to be me.

If you spend 72 hours in a place you’ve never been, talking to people whose language you don’t speak about social, political, and economic complexities you don’t understand, and you come back as the world’s biggest know-it-all, you’re a reporter. Either that or you’re President Obama.

I rarely meet a politician that I don’t like personally. They are generally well endowed with charm. Therein lies the danger.

Government is a health hazard. Governments have killed many more people than cigarettes or unbuckled seat belts ever have.

It’s very logical: There is proven ROI in doing whatever you can to turn your customers into advocates for your brand or business. The way to create advocates is to offer superior customer service.

It would be intolerant if I advocated the banning of religion, but of course I never have.

Become your biggest advocate. Drop the doubts, fears and insecurities.

If I have advocated the cause of the Negro, it is not because I am a Negro, but because I am a man.

Let’s take charge of our own happiness and be our own advocate. 

I didn’t change the Constitution; the equality principle was there from the start. I just was an advocate for seeing its full realization.

I don’t advocate violence; but if a man steps on my toes, I’ll step on his.

If politicians stopped meddling with things they don’t understand, there would be a more drastic reduction in the size of government than anyone in either party advocates.