"Truth be told, I'm not an easy man. I can be an entertaining one, though it's been my experience that most people don't want to be entertained. They want to be comforted."

"My books are elegiac in the sense that they're odes to a nation that even I sometimes think may not exist anymore except in my memory and my imagination."

"About 15 years ago I went though a period of a year or so when I just couldn't find anything good. My wife noticed I was having trouble reading menus. I bought some cheap reading glasses in a drug store. I got home and suddenly all these books that weren't good were good."

"HBO is really famous for hiring good people and staying out of their way until they ask for help, or need it. And that reputation is earned."

"The standard formulation on remedy is that it ought to cure past violations and prevent their recurrence. That's what antitrust is all about."

"The mind controls so much of the body. We are much more than flesh and blood we are complex systems. Patients do better when they have faith that they're going to do better. That's why I always tell my patients and their families not to neglect their prayers. There's nobody I don't say that to."

"I think the thing that the American people want is for the divisive debate on health care to stop."

"As the body dieth when the soul departeth, so the soul of man dieth, when it hath not the knowledge of God."