I believe history will come to view 9/11 as an event on par with November 22 1963 the date on which John F. Kennedy was murdered cutting short a presidency that was growing ever more promising. Dreams died that day in Dallas it is easy to imagine the 1960s turning out rather differently had President Kennedy lived.

A successful life is one that is lived through understanding and pursuing one's own path not chasing after the dreams of others.

For four to six months at a time I would barely eat. I lived on a diet of Melba toast carrots and black coffee.

I have lived with my husband more than I have with my parents... I live beside him and know his worries his hopes and his dreams for his nation. We believe that things happen by design not in an arbitrary way. And we believe it is our duty to make things happen.

I do what I love to do at the moment. If I wake up tomorrow and decide I want to dance that's what I'd do. Or design clothes. I think I'd throw myself into whatever I'm doing now. It's not about abandoning what I was doing before or giving up. It's about knowing that if I die tomorrow I lived the way I wanted to.

So here is one of my theories on happiness: we cannot know if we have lived a truly happy life until the very end. This view of life and death was reinforced by my close witnessing of the buildup to the death of Philip Gould. Philip was without doubt my closest friend in politics. When he died I felt like I had lost a limb.

There are hundreds of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings around the United States and in other countries too. Wright lived into his 90s and one of his most famous buildings the Guggenheim Museum in New York was completed just before his death. Wright buildings look like Wright buildings - that is their paradox.

My mother was the sweetest lady who ever lived on this planet but if you tried to tell her that Jesus wasn't a Christian she would stomp you to death.

Tears are sometimes an inappropriate response to death. When a life has been lived completely honestly completely successfully or just completely the correct response to death's perfect punctuation mark is a smile.

The passion of hatred is so long lived and so obstinate a malady that the surest sign of death in a sick person is their desire for reconciliation.