"The future is built on brains, not prom court, as most people can tell you after attending their high school reunion. But you'd never know it by talking to kids or listening to the messages they get from the culture and even from their schools."

"People always blame the girl she should have said no. A monosyllable, but conventional wisdom has always been that boys can't manage it."

"If I get the forty additional years statisticians say are likely coming to me, I could fit in at least one, maybe two new lifetimes. Sad that only one of those lifetimes can include being the mother of young children."

"There is little premium in poetry in a world that thinks of Pound and Whitman as a weight and a sampler, not an Ezra, a Walt, a thing of beauty, a joy forever."

"For David Parker and Daniel Parker, with the respect and admiration of their father, who grew up with them."

"I respect the president. He and I have a difference of opinion on how to help the country we both love. But the question each of us wants the voters to answer is who will be the better president, not who is the better American."

"Edge will be missed. It was an honor to share the ring with him, and compete against him."

"The people I respect most behave as if they were immortal and as if society was eternal."