"I used to say, 'Man, I think I'd be a really good dad. I'll be a great provider. I'm funny I'll go on trips with them - I'll do all sorts of stuff.' But the momming? I'm not made for that. I have a really good mom I know what she put into it."

"I don't think you can come into your wisdom until you have made mistakes on your own skin and felt them in reality of your own life."

"Which is - you know, like check it out, I'm pretty young, I'm only about 40 years old. I still have maybe another four decades of work left in me. And it's exceedingly likely that anything I write from this point forward is going to be judged by the world as the work that came after the freakish success of my last book, right?"

"I should just put it bluntly, because we're all sort of friends here now - it's exceedingly likely that my greatest success is behind me. Oh, so Jesus, what a thought! You know that's the kind of thought that could lead a person to start drinking gin at nine o'clock in the morning, and I don't want to go there."

"Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish. Do not overdo it."

"In order for a war to be just, three things are necessary. First, the authority of the sovereign. Secondly, a just cause. Thirdly, a rightful intention."

"Under the doctrine of separation of powers, the manner in which the president personally exercises his assigned executive powers is not subject to questioning by another branch of government."

"It isn't fate but fecklessness that has shoved Sarah Palin to the sidelines of national politics. The real tragedy is that she's taken a lot of other serious Republican women with her."