Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for protected and handed on for them to do the same.

Why has it seemed that the only way to protect the environment is with heavy-handed government regulation?

For-profit higher education is today a booming industry feeding on the student loans handed out to the desperate.

Abraham Lincoln comes from nothing has no education no money lives in the middle of nowhere on the frontier. And despite the fact that he suffers one tragedy and one setback after another through sheer force of will he becomes something extraordinary: not only the president but the person who almost single-handedly united the country.

I'm left handed but my dad taught me to play guitar right-handed.

Now that I'm a dad I'm practicing what I call 'one- handed cooking ' because I've got something more important in my other arm. I'm whipping up lots of frittatas and omelets.

Meyer and I have a bit in common because we're both left-handed. I think it's great that he seeks out that advice because he's not too cool or too uncomfortable to ask for it.

Because I believe that humans are computers I conjectured that computers like people can have left- and right-handed versions.

I was born left-handed but I was made to use my other hand. When I was writing 'Famished Road ' which was very long I got repetitive stress syndrome. My right wrist collapsed so I started using my left hand. The prose I wrote with my left hand came out denser so later on I had to change it.

We like to think about how smart we are. But I think talent as a writer is hard-wired in it's all there at least the basic elements of it. You can't change it any more than you can choose whether to be right handed or left handed.