You'll be dedicated and that's what you should want to be in anything in life - whether it's sports or academics or your relationship. It all stems from finding that fun that thrill that excitement.

People who supported Obama felt like they formed a relationship that they were being spoken to. The way that campaign worked and the way he's worked during his first term is to make people feel like he's grasping their hand whether it's by tweeting or email moments after an event sometimes during an event. It makes people relate to him.

No agent wants to see a book until he or she has decided whether to pursue the relationship.

If you look back on the breakups that you've had whether it's a long relationship or a one-night stand it's always awkward.

I've always loved the old epics that tell a simple emotional story whether it's the tumultuous relationship between Rhett and Scarlett or Lawrence of Arabia's passion to get lost in a faraway place.

It's like a garden: Whatever you water the most will do the best. At some point you decide whether you'll water your career or your relationship more.

But I think the real tension lies in the relationship between what you might call the pursuer and his quarry whether it's the writer or the spy.

It is always a disappointment to turn from forthright consideration of some subject - whether from the Left or the Right a poet or a plumber - to the Beltway version in which the only aspects of the issue that matter are the effects it will have on the fortunes of the two parties and the various men in power.

Almost all first ladies have had tremendous power on personnel issues whether the public realized it or not whether it was Barbara Bush or Nancy Reagan or whoever.

Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president from a murderous general or a beloved leader I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomenon.