Modern Americans are remarkably capable people, skillful and inventive in many ways, but they are not so good at talking to one another across their vast differences of social class and economic status.

Americans cannot teach democracy to the world until they restore their own.

Animal-rights advocates remind us of this admonition: The ways in which people treat animals will be reflected in how people relate to one another.

My wife and I were talking this morning, and I said 'What if all Americans said they were not going to drive, everyone parked their cars, what would the oil companies do?' I bet they would lose millions.

A hundred standing people smiling and talking to one another, nodding like gooney birds.

Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and commercials.