There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.

Stupid is a great force in human affairs.

Political systems are run by self-selecting politicians. We don't draft people; it's not jury duty.

Death is so important that God visited death upon his own son, thereby helping us learn right from wrong well enough that we may escape death forever and live eternally in God's grace.

If you want to join the Republican party, they have to let you in. There's nothing they can do about it. I mean, if Republicans will take Al D'Amato, they'll take anybody.

You can learn all about the human condition from covering the crime beat in a big city - you don't need to go to Beirut for that - but a foreign correspondent begins to understand poverty from a different perspective.