In order to have good fried chicken you should wash and season the bird the morning you're preparing it for dinner. Don't wait and do it right before you start cooking. Throw it in the refrigerator seasoned that morning and give it a chance to soak up all the salt and pepper and goodness.

'Not again!' I thought to myself this morning as news trickled out that John McCain was set to pick Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Not again because too often women are promoted for the wrong reasons and then blamed when things don't go right.

I'm very happy with the way I look. I wake up some morning catch myself in the bathroom mirror and go 'hey girl you're alright'. But on the other hand I find the website stuff and the polls something completely removed from my own personal life. You can't take anything like that too seriously otherwise you'd end up in the loony bin.

I've just finished my 20th book this past year and I'm working on my 21st book about the Middle East right now that I'll finish this year. And I get up early in the morning and when I get tired of the computer and tired of doing research I walk 20 steps out to my woodshop and I either build furniture or paint paintings. I'm an artist too.

These flowers which were splendid and sprightly waking in the dawn of the morning in the evening will be a pitiful frivolity sleeping in the cold night's arms.

The first thing I think about when I wake up most mornings is the fact that I'm tired. I have been tired for decades. I am tired in the morning and I am tired while becalmed in the slough of the afternoon and I am tired in the evening except right when I try to go to sleep.

And my only rule being if when I wake in the morning I'm looking forward to the things that I have to do that day then I'm on the right track.

Like a morning dream life becomes more and more bright the longer we live and the reason of everything appears more clear. What has puzzled us before seems less mysterious and the crooked paths look straighter as we approach the end.

If the money's right I'll do a film.

I think that lawyers are terrible at admitting that they're wrong. And not just admitting it also realizing it. Most lawyers are very successful and they think that because they're making money and people think well of them they must be doing everything right.