For interns at 'The Weekly Standard' or 'National Review,' where the martial instinct finds its most insistent voice, what Robert Kagan calls the military 'career path' is not widely seen as a plausible future. Pulling a trigger is what Jose, Tyrone, and Bubba do, not early admission students at the better private universities.

In sports, the confluence of the 1989 Oakland vs. San Francisco World Series and the Loma Prieta earthquake notwithstanding, the earth rarely moves.

I love cops; I'm fascinated by the criminal justice system.

Retirement is purgatory for the former sports star. The world outside organized sports is unforgiving.

Unless you're living on the street and surviving on a diet of discarded turkey drumsticks, there's no point in being gloomy. We've spent too long trying to cheer ourselves up by spending money on brightly coloured things we don't really need. We've stopped using our imaginations.

The best loved by God are those that are rich, yet have the humility of the poor, and those that are poor and have the magnanimity of the rich.

You have to draw on your unconscious when you make a film - you can't worry about whether it's costing a lot of money.

For me, there will be no enemies but unemployment, the deficit, excessive debt, economic stagnation and anything else that keeps our country in these critical circumstances.