“Although our interests as citizens vary, each one is an artery to the heart that pumps life through the body politic, and each is important to the health of democracy.”

America is the longest argument in the world.

It’s no longer just reporting the headlines of the day, but trying to put the headlines into some context and to add some perspective into what they mean.

Democracy works when people claim it as their own

We have got to have the ugly facts in order to protect us from the official view of reality. Otherwise, we are squeezed empty and filled with what other people want us to think and feel and experience.

You know what’s the rage this year? …Hats.

There’s 1,000 ways into addiction 1,000 ways out.

David Rockefeller is the most conspicuous representative today of the ruling class, a multinational fraternity of men who shape the global economy and manage the flow of its capital.

The corporate right and the political right declared class warfare on working people a quarter of a century ago and they’ve won.

Hyperbole was to Lyndon Johnson what oxygen is to life.

Our children are being raised by appliances.

Professionals give advice; pilgrims share wisdom.

Barack Obama treated too lightly the people and forces determined to destroy him. They spat in his face and didn’t even get ticketed for a misdemeanor.

If the watchdog doesn’t bark, how do you know there’s a burglar in the basement? And the press is supposed to be a watchdog.

Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous.

I approach the end of my own long run believing more strongly than ever that the quality of journalism and the quality of democracy are inextricably joined … .

I’m angry at what’s happening to America and angry with myself that I can’t do more. I would be miserable if I couldn’t bear witness.

[President Obama] made so many promises. We thought that he was going to be — I shouldn’t say this at Christmastime — but the next messiah.

Every citizen of this country should be guaranteed that their vote matters, that their vote is counted, and that in the voting booth, their vote has a much weight as that of any CEO, any member of Congress, or any President.

I truly believe that before I retire from public office, I’ll be voting for a woman for president.

We are not voting for health care if we do not resolve this language on public funding for abortion – no public funding for abortion.

I am sure that every one of my colleagues “Democrat, Republican, and Independent” agrees with that statement. That in the voting booth, every one is equal.

Any time you have, you know, upwards of 90 percent of a demographic voting against somebody, that’s a statement.

We do not believe in government through the voting booth.

if we kept on voting, if we kept on believing, we would make America beautiful for everybody.