America Is A Passionate Idea Or It

Principles-and I Have In Mind Such Principles As States' Rights Or National Sovereignty Or The Free Market Or Pacifism-have A Way Of Drying Up While The Sap Of Life Goes Flowing In Another Direction.

I Am Neither An Optimist Nor Pessimist, But A Possibilist.

We All Run On Two Clocks. One Is The Outside Clock, Which Ticks Away Our Decades And Brings Us Ceaselessly To The Dry Season. The Other Is The Inside Clock, Where You Are Your Own Timekeeper And Determine Your Own Chronology, Your Own Internal Weather And Your Own Rate Of Living. Sometimes The Inner Clock Runs Itself Out Long Before The Outer One, And You See A Dead Man Going Through The Motions Of Living.

Some Of The More Fatuous Flag-waving Americans Are In Danger Of Forgetting That You Can't Extract Gratitude As You Would Extract A Tooth; That Unless Friendship Is Freely Given, It Means Nothing And Less Than Nothing.

The Taste Of Democracy Becomes A Bitter Taste When The Fullness Of Democracy Is Denied.