“We must try again to be alive to what the people of our country really long for in our national life: forgiveness and grace, maturity and wisdom....Our political leaders will know our priorities on...”

“What we need most right now, at this moment, is a kind of patriotic grace - a grace that takes the long view, apprehends the moment we're in, comes up with ways of dealing with it, and eschews the ...”

“But one immediate thing can be done right now, and that is: lower the temperature. Any way you can, and everybody. Just lower it.”

“Word of the day- kakistocracy. From the Greek meaning government by the worst persons, least qualified or most unprincipled.”

“Prayer is the hardest thing. And no one congratulates you for doing it because no one knows you're doing it, and if things turn out well they likely won't thank God in any case. But I have a feelin...”

“Everyone over 50 in America feels like a refugee. In the Old America there were a lot of bad parents. There always are, because parenting is hard. Inadequate parents could say, 'Go outside and play...”

“On the night of New Years Day, I thought of a wonderful New Years resolution for the men who run the world: get to know the people who only live in it.”

“The difference between a politician and a statesman is that a politician thinks about the next election while the statesman think about the next generation.”

“He was a consummate politician-- which is to say he was given to expedient speech and lacked even a vestigial spine.”