After I left the White House I kept a foothold in the business of American politics as a talk-show host analyst commentator speechmaker and occasional writer. I was no longer a practitioner but I was still a partisan a Democrat a blue-stater through and through.

Sculpture is the best comment that a painter can make on painting.

Because most of my career in the classroom has been at art schools (beginning at Bennington in the 1970s) I am hyper-aware of the often grotesque disconnect between commentary on the arts and the actual practice or production of the arts.

My favorite laser disk ever was the laser disk for The Graduate which had a commentary track that wasn't even the filmmakers it was a professor some film criticism guy who just happen to be this amazing commentator who went off into the whole theory of comedy.

There was once a caustic comment from someone suggesting I was breeding a new race. Fans from different countries have married amazing things like that. I've been to some of the weddings. I went to one here the other day a pagan ceremony.

Never say never but the thought of electively cutting oneself is beyond my grasp and I also object to it politically. Denying the lines on our faces makes a comment about age and wisdom I don't care to make.

The kids are old enough now - I just want to let them be kids. I don't want to comment on them too much. They're at an age where I just want to let them be kids.