“The columnist gives these words to the longings of an 11-year-old he meets with Tourette's syndrome: "Wisdom is encoded in our common language. We all have, to some extent, a complex, sometimes adversarial, relationship with our physical selves. And I more than most people know that it is correct to say,'I have a body.' There is my body, and then there is ME, trying to make it behave.”

“Football combines the two worst features of American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings.”

“if we could tax Americans' cognitive dissonance we could balance the budget. The American people want all kinds of incompatible things, they're human beings, and they want high services, low taxes, and an omnipresent, omniprominent welfare state.”

“The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.”

“Coarseness occurs in a land where platitude inflames this sense of entitlement to more of almost everything, but less of manners and taste, with their irritating intimations of authority and hierarchy.”

“Behavior was better when cinemas were opulent.”

“Television news is akin to audible wallpaper.”

“Our hatred of government is not caused mainly by government's goals, whatever their wisdom, but by government's techniques." Philip Howard”

“Washington DC is happiest when in indignation overdrive.”

“Law, rather than harnessing the passions, is increasingly pressed into their service.”

“Americans would prefer that immigrants do their jobs and then disappear at the end of the day.”