“We must, together as a nation, stop watching Fox.”

“Shall we all open our heart to be a forever home for lost pets.”

“We live in a center-right country. Now watch me smile oleaginously.”

“We are human, and we suffer, and unlike the animals on the farm, we are self-aware, and we know that we suffer, and it doesn't hurt more or less if God caused it or could stop it, at least for me. I am definitely of the school that believes God has bigger stuff to worry about than me.”

“Launching a nice little war to divert national attention was a gambit no less appealing to nineteenth-century politicians than it is to their present-day counterparts.”

“We kept walking, our shadows moving in shifting blobs over the ground. The sound of river rocks rattled under our feet. We turned along a bend in the stream and a curtain of poplar trees came into view, shivering in the distance, showing the white backsides of their leaves. I watched them for a while until an ancient, aching sorrow rose up in my chest. It was a familiar feeling. Something in the mute, unconscious trees resonated inside me, something so deep and fundamental it failed to remember its own source anymore. I watched the poplars flickering against the hard blue of the sky. What is sorrow? I thought. What is sorrow but old, worn out joy?”

“Our greatest leaders are neither dreamers nor dictators: They are, like Jefferson, those who articulate national aspirations yet master the mechanics of influence and know when to depart from dogma.”