As governor when I visited our troops in Kuwait and Iraq I served them Thanksgiving dinner. It was a small gesture compared to their sacrifice.

The upheavals of adolescence silenced 'A Christmas Carol' for a few years. I became a firebrand atheist. Christmas - humbug! Too commercial! Then I became an agnostic. Christmas was a pro-forma affair basically a chore. Buy mother a book dad a new tie my brother and sister small gifts. Pretend thanks for the fountain pens and shirts I received.

I love giving gifts and I love receiving them. I really like giving little kids extravagant gifts. You see their little faces light up and they get excited. If it's a really good gift I love receiving it like jewels small islands.

Intimacies between women often go backwards beginning in revelations and ending in small talk.

Great wisdom is generous petty wisdom is contentious. Great speech is impassioned small speech cantankerous.

I learned some valuable lessons about the legislative process the importance of bipartisan cooperation and the wisdom of taking small steps to get a big job done.

The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.

The Iraq war was fought by one-half of one percent of us. And unless we were part of that small group or had a relative who was we went about our lives as usual most of the time: no draft no new taxes no changes. Not so for the small group who fought the war and their families.

However much we may sympathize with a small nation confronted by a big and powerful neighbours we cannot in all circumstances undertake to involve the whole British Empire in a war simply on her account.

War has become a luxury that only small nations can afford.