“As a former writer for the ‘National Lampoon,’ I’ve probably contributed to the sea of sarcasm in which we live.”

Little islands of human happiness, peace, and prosperity are so exceptional at this point in history that I’m not even sure we can draw lessons from them.

What Alexander Graham Bell thought up occupied less space than a flower vase. Now it’s so small that I have to search all my pockets to discover I’ve received a spam text.

No industry in living memory has collapsed faster than daily print journalism.

Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely.

I had always thought of Egypt as a rather secular country. And I think it is, but people are quite observant of the strictures of Ramadan.

All change is bad. But sometimes it has to be done.

I’m too tough and sensitive to have to have some pubescent twerp with his mom’s earring in his tongue, who combs his hair with Redi-Whip and has an Ani DiFranco tattoo on his shin, come show me how a computer works.

Rich people don’t like to be in the military. The shoes are ugly and the uniforms itch. Rich people don’t go in much for revolution or terrorism, either.

Fiscal conservatism is just an easy way to express something that is a bit more difficult, which is that the size and scope of government, and really the size and scope of politics in our lives, has grown uncomfortable, unwieldy, intrusive and inefficient.

I read good. I was an English major.

Term limits aren’t enough. We need jail.

You’re stupid,’ is not something even his most severe critics usually say to President Barack Obama.

In our brief national history we have shot four of our presidents, worried five of them to death, impeached one and hounded another out of office. And when all else fails, we hold an election and assassinate their character.

Regulation creates a moral hazard.

Catchphrases flourish in contemporary American English.

Wealth brings great benefits to the world. Rich people are heros.

There was discover’d by me a fifth sort, which had near the thickness of the former, but they were almost twice as long. The first time bacteria were observed.

All that seems indispensible in stating the account between the dead and the living, is to see that the debts against the latter do not exceed the advances made by the former.

The Negro was a political football between his former slave master and Northern political adventurers.

As former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano pointed out, if you build a 50-foot wall, you’ll soon be confronted with a 51-foot ladder.

Love transforms us in the best of ways, allowing us only to look back on a memory of our former self.

The main difference between the Prague Spring and the Velvet Revolution was that the former was mostly the work of Communist party members and others who wanted to bring about ‘socialism with a human face.’

I think we need to make it clear that your growth of the former Soviet Union is over

Humanity has emerged from its former degrees of limitation and preliminary training. Man must now become imbued with new virtues and powers, new moralities, new capacities.