“When I tell children that they are far too dependent on their gizmos, they do not deny it. But they really don’t care.”

Dan Rather is guilty of not being skeptical enough about a story that was politically loaded.

On the policy front, I just believe that Barack Obama was misguided. That he somehow sees this country as being in need of a drastic overhaul.

I think the secret to success is a short-term outlook. So for example, I’m writing the next Killing book now and I have to just make every chapter compelling, so I can’t get too far ahead of it. I just stay in the present and then go over what I have to do.

The Clintons opposed gay marriage. They did don’t ask, don’t tell. They did the Defense of Marriage Act.

That’s my advice to all homosexuals, whether they’re in the Boy Scouts, or in the Army or in high school: Shut up, don’t tell anybody what you do, your life will be a lot easier.

Lotsa people want to hurt me. That’s the price you pay for being a big mouth.

Our philosophy is we call it as we see it. Sometimes you agree, sometimes you don’t. Robust debate is good.

I don’t need the approval of the press, but I just wish they’d stop the viciousness….I never felt sorry for people like Lindsay Lohan in my life. I thought they were dopey little movie stars. Now I feel sorry for those people.

Get punctual, bring energy and creativity to your work, and stay with a project until it’s completed (and then double-check the results). These habits will make you indispensable.

My father firmly embraced the Ralph Kramden philosophy: he was king of his Levittown castle. He worked hard, and his family deferred to his wishes. Except me. I did not defer and was disciplined accordingly.

Traditionalists like me believe the USA has become strong because of its core values, the freedom, individual responsibility and institutions like traditional marriage, which foster common goals.

I’m enamored of any person, a young person, a lesbian, straight, gay guy who wants to go over and kill bad guys for me and my family. That blows me away.

I know that Oswald killed Kennedy. Now, was he pushed? Encouraged to do it by outsiders? Possibly. Possibly. Was he sitting down with Fidel Castro? No.

If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it’s clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again.

I mean, that was a throwaway thought, because my focus was – my intent and my focus was to never go public.

A good journalist’s first priority should be to separate propaganda from fact – but sometimes its very hard to do that.

I embrace everybody, but you work everybody and each song at a time to who it is for. I believe that’s how you build a palace. You build a palace one block at a time and then you’ll have what you want. That’s how it goes.

The basic building block of peace and security for all peoples is economic and social security, anchored in sustainable development. It is a key to all problems. Why? Because it allows us to address all the great issues-poverty, climate, environment and political stability-as parts of the whole.

Fear and fatigue block the mind. Face both, then courage and confidence flows into you.

I learned to produce whether I wanted to or not. It would be easy to say oh, I have writer’s block, oh, I have to wait for my muse. I don’t. Chain that muse to your desk and get the job done.

Kids have what I call a built-in hypocrisy antenna that comes up and blocks out what you’re saying when you’re being a hypocrite.

The obstacles in our path are not blocking us-they are redirecting us. Their purpose is not to interfere with our happiness; it is to point us toward new routes to our happiness, new possibilities, new doorways.

You try to become the character that you’re working with. So for me, I try to block out the cameras and try to trick my mind that this is actually happening.

the innate respect for human lives, the intense humanity that is our heritage, the African race, united under one federal government, will emerge not as just another world bloc to flaunt its wealth and strength.