My friend Phil has a theory that the Lord, having made teenagers, felt constrained to make amends and so created the golden retriever.

I am hoping for better times. That's how you know us hapless gardeners - by our dirty fingernails and our absurd, unquenchable optimism about next year.

And the propensity of weak and empty people to follow a leader into the darkness from which there is no return is still flourishing, as ever.

Appliances have idiosyncracies, just like us. Unfortunately they have picked up our less attractive traits - they are proud, spiteful, and unforgiving.

Baseball is what we were, football is what we have become.

You need the will to disarm the civilian population. If we can do it in Somalia, we can do it here.

Dogs, bless them, operate on the premise that human beings are fragile and require incessant applications of affection and reassurance. The random lick of a hand and the furry chin draped over the instep are calculated to let the shaky owner know that a friend is nearby.

[On Senator Everett Dirksen:] His great enemy was boredom and he won every engagement.

[On Italy:] ... the country where kindness to strangers is a religion, you can't turn your head without seeing something beautiful, and you can't get a bad meal if you try.

Baseball has a special place in our hearts. It is the game that shows us as we would like to be.