I remember the 1940s as a time when we were united in a way known only to that generation. We belonged to a common cause-the war.

When this sad war is over we will all return to our homes and feel that we can ask no higher honor than the proud consciousness that we belonged to the Army of the Potomac.

Religion did not exist for the saving of souls but for the preservation and welfare of society and in all that was necessary to this end every man had to take his part or break with the domestic and political community to which he belonged.

He belonged to that army known as invincible in peace invisible in war.

There is something uniquely depressing about the fact that the National Portrait Gallery's version of the Barack Obama 'Hope' poster previously belonged to a pair of lobbyists. Depressing because Mr. Obama's Washington was not supposed to be the lobbyists' Washington the place we learned to despise during the last administration.

As children we recognized that we belonged to an unusual even exceptional family but the effect was different on each of us.

I sang in the choir for years even though my family belonged to another church.

It was actually a women's writing group I belonged to in graduate school that gave me the courage to move from poetry to fiction.

As a young man even if I was going to see a play or a film by myself I didn't feel like I was alone. There was something that was unfolding up there that brought me into it. And I recognised that. For those two hours it made me feel like I belonged to something really good.