What I like best is the challenge of learning something I didn't know how to do, going beyond my comfort level.

I meet people, and we can get past small talk pretty quickly if they've read my books. It's a great shortcut.

There is that romanticized idea of what a bookstore can be, what a library can be, what a shop can be. And to me, they are that. These are places that open doors into other worlds if only you're open to them.

The critic has to do more of what the book critics and art critics have done in the past. Which is give you a context for understanding the restaurant, give you a better way to appreciate it, give you the tools to go in there and be a more informed diner who can get more pleasure out of the experience.

The next adventure is the government, a government of change.

There is just a small difference between the United States and Russia - Russia does not teach the whole world democracy.

My mother informed me that the way to be a change agent to create change, the first line of defense, or however you want to phrase that, is politics and government.

Our tax policies, the tax relief and reform we passed in 2003 and 2005, helped get government out of the way of America's entrepreneurs, and our unemployment rate is now lower than it was in the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s.