The things we do to our children - most of the evil in the world is not done with bad intentions but with the best intentions ever.

In boxing, they say it's the punch you don't see coming that knocks you out. In the wider world, the reality we ignore or deny is the one that weakens our most impassioned efforts toward improvement.

I was reading a lot of European history, and I thought Attila the Hun had gotten a bad rap.

'The Iliad' includes some snappy sports reporting, and writers ever since have been probing athletes for signifiers, for metaphor amped by grit under pressure.

Hell is paved with good intentions.

Some of the worst things are done with the best intentions, Petra,” August said. “You shouldn’t have done this to me.