"I'm disappointed that Iraq hasn't turned out better. And that we weren't able to move forward more meaningfully in the Middle East peace process... The biggest regret is that we didn't stop 9/11. And then in the wake of 9/11, instead of redoubling what is our traditional export of hope and optimism we exported our fear and our anger. And presented a very intense and angry face to the world. I regret that a lot."

-----Richard Armitage, Departing Deputy Secretary of State on the disappointments of the first Bush term.

"If by 2008, the Democrats hope to come near to a meaningful fraction of [faith-based] voters, they will have to find candidates and field workers who can spread the word down South---that is, find the equivalent of Democratic missionaries to work on all those good people who may be in awe of Jehovah's wrath, but love Jesus so much more. Worked upon with enough zeal, some of the latter might come to recognize that these much-derided liberals live much more closely than the Republicans in the real spirit of Jesus. Whether they believe every word of Scripture or not, it is still these liberals rather than the Republicans who worry about the fate of the poor, the afflicted, the needy, and the disturbed. These liberals even care about the well-being of criminals in our prisons. They are more ready to save the forests, refresh the air of the cities and clean up the rivers. It might be agonizing for a good fundamentalist to vote for a candidate who did not read the Scriptures every day, yet some of them might yet be ready to say: I no longer know where to place my vote. I have joined the ranks of the undecided.

More power to such a man. More power to all who would be ready to live with the indecision implicit in democracy. It is democracy, after all, which first brought the power and virtue of good questions to the attention of the people rather than restricting the matter to the upper classes."

-----Norman Mailer, from "Change Links" newspaper

"Ash Wednesday is a day for honesty, a realistic assessment of the human heart. By tradition it is a day when we assert (unfashionably but rightly) the sinfulness of our nature, and ask God to 'create and make in us new and contrite hearts,' and many kneel to have ash placed on their foreheads in the shape of a cross. But even in the stringent days of Lent there is a complimentary truth which also needs affirming. We may be dust, but we are dust that is full of mystery and that dreams of glory; dust (we sense) that is to be changed, transfigured, into God's own likeness."

-----Michael Mayne, "Pray, Love, Remember"