Even if it wasn't always morning in America during the years of his presidency, Reagan's eagerness to insist that it was tapped into a longing among voters. They didn't want to picture themselves turning down their thermostats and buttoning up their cardigans. They wanted to strut again. Reagan opened his arms and said, 'Walk this way.'

In sub-Saharan Africa, fewer than 1 in 5 girls make it to secondary school.

I come from a family of teachers, and I believe ideas matter; the good ones deserve reverence, and the bad ones, defiance.

If you want to humble an empire, it makes sense to maim its cathedrals. They are symbols of its faith, and when they crumple and burn, it tells us we are not so powerful and we can't be safe.

In the weeks after 9/11, out of the pain and the fear there arose also grace and gratitude, eruptions of intense kindness that occurred everywhere, a sharp resolve to just be better, bigger, to shed the nonsense, rise to the occasion.

It's funny how things change slowly, until the day we realize they've changed completely.

The understanding of Syria's devastating civil war has been distorted by the immense danger and difficulty of covering it.

Pain is the most private experience, but its causes, whether natural or man-made, demand public accounting.

The 1950s felt so safe and smug, the '60s so raw and raucous, the revolutions stacked one on top of another, in race relations, gender roles, generational conflict, the clash of church and state - so many values and vanities tossed on the bonfire, and no one had a concordance to explain why it was all happening at once.

Once there was a boy so meek and modest, he was awarded a Most Humble badge. The next day, it was taken away because he wore it. Here endeth the lesson.

Rooting from the sidelines is the most democratic of sporting rites: no skyboxes, no tickets required, just an unabashed will to holler and wave.

Just because we eat together does not mean we eat right: Domino's alone delivers a million pizzas on an average day.

Progress is seldom simple; it comes with costs and casualties, even challenges about whether a change represents an advance or a retreat.

Be bored and see where it takes you, because the imagination's dusty wilderness is worth crossing if you want to sculpt your soul.

Virtues, like viruses, have their seasons of contagion. When catastrophe strikes, generosity spikes like a fever. Courage spreads in the face of tyranny.

Weak presidents are neither respected nor electorally rewarded by their publics.

Germany was beaten after World War I, but it didn't take long for it to rise again as a much more malignant threat. The end of World War II was not to be a compromise; it was to come about from the total annihilation of the enemies' ability and will to make war.

Either a war has to be fought, or it doesn't.

Give the enemy an inch, he'll take a yard.

There are plenty of Muslims who live faithfully in the United States.

The Islamic terror threat is so fierce, unrelenting and barbaric that we tell ourselves fairy tales about how these ruthless acts are anything but what they are: acts of war.

President George W. Bush's aggressive war on Islamic terrorism produced a 100 percent perfect track record of keeping the United States safe from another attack. The result has been increased security for the American people, who, in turn, have become complacent about the true nature of the threat.

Many Muslims may not seek to kill the infidel, but they don't want to condemn those carrying out the holy book command.

Does every Muslim commit terror? Of course not.