"Few expected very much of Franklin Roosevelt on Inauguration Day in 1933. Like Barack Obama seventy-six years later, he was succeeding a failed Republican president, and Americans had voted for change. What that change might be Roosevelt never clearly said, probably because he himself didn't know."

"Is fuel efficiency really what we need most desperately? I say that what we really need is a car that can be shot when it breaks down."

"Rereading A.J. Liebling carries me happily back to an age when all good journalists knew they had plenty to be modest about, and were."

"Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things."

"The most important thing about global warming is this. Whether humans are responsible for the bulk of climate change is going to be left to the scientists, but it's all of our responsibility to leave this planet in better shape for the future generations than we found it."

"It's so different when you change your hair color, you're treated so differently. It's a very funny experience. It's fun - I love changing up my hair."

"As we grow old, the beauty steals inward."

"As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do."