From Jefferson to Jackson to Lincoln to FDR to Reagan every great president inspires enormous affection and enormous hostility. We'll all be much saner I think if we remember that history is full of surprises and things that seemed absolutely certain one day are often unimaginable the next.

Having bought furniture for my own house and bought furniture for our house in Washington a furniture store seemed like a good idea and it also played into my personal history.

Obama seemed poised to realign American politics after his stunning 2008 victory. But the economy remains worse than even the administration's worst-case scenarios and the long legislative battles over health care reform financial services reform and the national debt and deficit have taken their toll. Obama no longer looks invincible.

If you asked somebody 'what do you wish for in life?' they wouldn't say 'happiness.' I would have answered 'excitement knowledge ' God knows - I mean many many different things but certainly not 'happiness'. It seemed like a foreign concept to wish for something that specific and that singular.

All who have accomplished great things have had a great aim have fixed their gaze on a goal which was high one which sometimes seemed impossible.

It seemed the world was divided into good and bad people. The good ones slept better while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more.

I guess the real reason that my wife and I had children is the same reason that Napoleon had for invading Russia: it seemed like a good idea at the time.

What's funny is that the idea of popularity - even the use of the word 'popular' - is something that had been mostly absent from my life since junior high. In fact the hallmark of life after junior high seemed to be the shedding of popularity as a central concern.

Jazz is about freedom within discipline. Usually a dictatorship like in Russia and Germany will prevent jazz from being played because it just seemed to represent freedom democracy and the United States.

I don't plan on going back to legal work. I wanted an international career and finance seemed to be where some interesting career opportunities were.

It seemed that rebellion must have an unassailable base something guarded not merely from attack but from the fear of it: such a base as we had in the Red Sea Parts the desert or in the minds of the men we converted to our creed.

Going to New York to do whatever - show business - it just seemed fun. It seemed fun to go to the big city and meet all kinds of different people and maybe be famous. It was just exciting. So I wasn't scared.

Quentin is very organic there was no way that he was going to put someone else's hand in there and anyway my hands are kind of famous. It seemed right.

I could have been more famous if I did all the glitzy things but celebrity always seemed so unnecessary.

I met a lot of famous people when I was about 24. And none of them seemed very appealing. And so I didn't know why I would struggle to be that kind of person.

Dates with actors finally just seemed to me evenings of shop talk. I got sick of it after a hile. So the more famous I became the more I narrowed down my choices.

Once I got married and had kids I moved away from romantic roles because it seemed wrong to have my 3-year-old wondering why Daddy was kissing someone else.

These are strange times. Reason which once combatted faith and seemed to have conquered it now has to look to faith to save it from dissolution.

My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe place to another. Like lily pads round and green these places summoned and then held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land and in this way I moved across the swamp of doubt and fear.

As might be supposed my parents were quite poor but we somehow never seemed to lack anything we needed and I never saw a trace of discontent or a failure in cheerfulness over their lot in life as indeed over anything.

A little more persistence a little more effort and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success.

It has always seemed strange to me... the things we admire in men kindness and generosity openness honesty understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest sharpness greed acquisitiveness meanness egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.

Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.

I'm a latecomer to the environmental issue which for years seemed to me like an excuse for more government regulation. But I can see that in rich societies voters are paying less attention to economic issues and more to issues of the spirit including the environment.