Calling a taxi in Texas is like calling a rabbi in Iraq.

I've done the calculation and your chances of winning the lottery are identical whether you play or not.

I figure you have the same chance of winning the lottery whether you play or not.

I place a high moral value on the way people behave. I find it repellent to have a lot, and to behave with anything other than courtesy in the old sense of the word - politeness of the heart, a gentleness of the spirit.

When the human race neglects its weaker members, when the family neglects its weakest one - it's the first blow in a suicidal movement. I see the neglect in cities around the country, in poor white children in West Virginia and Virginia and Kentucky - in the big cities, too, for that matter.

We don't have titles on our business cards. No one really gets any special treatment. No one gets a corner office to put pictures of their family and their dog in.

Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper.

I was brought up in a family of journalists, and a mother who was deeply committed to human rights, so I think that the mix of those two huge influences have been very, very important to me.