Americans need to be engaged and invested in the legislative process that affects their daily lives, otherwise we are just democracy in name only.

To discuss a Martin Amis book, you must first discuss the orchestrated release of a Martin Amis book. In London, which rightly prides itself on the vibrancy of its literary cottage industry, Amis is the Steve Jobs of book promoters, and his product rollouts are as carefully managed as anything Apple dreams up.

You have to give kids something to rebel against. You can't like their music - you have to call it noise. It's incumbent on a parent.

War is a form of really bad manners, in a strange way. Invading a country I think is just the worst possible manners. 'You're not invited!' Gate crashing on a large scale!

I actually don't know how magazines are produced, I'll be honest with you. I have no idea.

My suggestion to newspapers everywhere is to give the public a reason to read them again. So here's an idea: get on a big story with widespread public appeal, devote your best resources to it, say a quiet prayer, and swing for the fences.

Hatred for Obama... has more to do with race than anything else.

As you get older and fatter, good clothes can hide a lot.

Stationery is addictive. I get mine made in Paris at Benetton, and writing on it gives me a strange thrill.

Every minute you invest in kids you get back four times over.

Everything I love about America is fragile.

Branding experts believe that just because they have rethought a company's image or name, the rest of us will automatically fall in line.

In this age of 24-7 headlines, the term 'newsweekly' seems almost quaint.

After the collapse of Wall Street in the 1920s, the culture stopped being all about money, and the country survived and ultimately flourished.

To a young kid growing up in Canada, America seemed to be crazy about the future; dazzled by it.

Water-boarding can result in damage to the lungs and the brain, as well as long-term psychological trauma.

It could fairly be said that America, during the Bush years, has entered an Age of Denial - arguably the first stage of a nation's decline.

In 2004, I wrote 'What We've Lost,' a book about the Bush administration. It sold only reasonably well, in part, I think, because the book was a horrific downer, an unrelenting account of the administration's actions, bungles, deceptions, half-truths, untruths, and downright corruptions.

I don't think you can be a credible, modern candidate for president without making the environment a major part of your platform.

Former vice president Al Gore has devoted his post-administration years to a mission to tell the world about global warming. It's funny, but in his civilian life Gore has discovered the voice that voters had trouble hearing when he ran for president in 2000. The voice he has found is clear, impassioned, and moving.

'Green' does not have to mean the sort of hair-shirt, wood-burning-stove sensibility of the '70s. Green can and should be sleek and modern.

It could fairly be said that the U.S. is increasingly out of step with the rest of the world. As our neighbors to the south elect left-wing or even socialist governments, we are lurching further to the right. As Europe becomes less engaged to the Church, we are becoming more fundamentalist.

It's no surprise that the Bush administration's bullying swagger and blithe ignorance have caused much of the Muslim world to hold the U.S. in rock-bottom regard.

Conservatives define themselves more by their hatred of liberals than anything else, and, conversely, liberals by their distaste for conservatives.