I talked to Reagan for about six hours all told. and Reagan was willing to go along with it. He didn't look at his watch, and he didn't allow his campaign aides to cut it off.

I've been with the paper for almost 30 years.

For example, I spent a lot of time with Reagan, both before he ran for governor and when he was running for president. As a print reporter without the cameras, I was able to really test the quality of their minds and their knowledge base.

I teach at USC, and it's obvious to anyone who teaches college students that they don't cover much modern history and certainly not the modern presidency.

I was a finalist for the Pulitzer as a reporter.

We talk about a free press. These people hide, they make a lot of money off the media. They hide behind the slogans of free press, and then they can come out with crap like that. It's just garbage. It's insulting to the readers.

I have broken a lot of stories.

And the big issue here, I think, is that the publisher took over the editorial pages, a guy named Jeff Johnson. He's an accountant from Chicago, doesn't know anything about what newspapers are supposed to be about, and he made a decision to get rid of the column.

That means presenting the issues in certain ways that will appeal to those people and then becoming a prisoner of your own language and thought process. That has always happened - it's just been intensified.

So this guy, Jeff Johnson, who is an accountant who cares nothing at all about a free press and cares nothing about journalism, he's a right winger who supported the war, you know, who two years ago told people he couldn't stand a word that I wrote.

Even with the best of intentions, even when they're very smart and knowledgeable - as opposed to George W., who is neither - it doesn't seem to matter.

And new people come in, and it doesn't go along with their politics, and they fire me, end the column, silence a voice in Los Angeles. They can't silence it nationally, but they are able to do it there.

The paper nominated me 12 or 13 times for the Pulitzer Prize.

I talked to Reagan for about six hours all told. and Reagan was willing to go along with it. He didn't look at his watch, and he didn't allow his campaign aides to cut it off.

The decision came from the publisher. It certainly was cleared by Chicago. And then they come out with these fine sounding words about relation to readers and their obligation. It has nothing to do with that.

The publisher has told - you know, if these editors, Andres Martinez and Nick Goldberg, were the least bit honest about this, they would tell you the publisher has told them he wants the editorial page to be conservative.

What Clinton severed with his welfare reform was the obligation of the federal government to step in when the states failed and to monitor these programs.

I was able to do something that people can't do these days, which is to have quality time with the guys who were trying to be president and a number of them who got the job.

It had run as a column - I had worked at the paper since 1976, but the column had been running for 13 years, and I think it was a strong column, criticizing the war when the paper was supporting it.

What passes for investigative journalism is finding somebody with their pants down - literally or otherwise.

For instance, Clinton who was unquestionably the smartest of the bunch I talked to - both the ones who made it and didn't. He had a great interest in policy.

Well, what happened is that I had been the subject of vicious attacks by Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh.

When Howard Dean started saying some honest things, they hung him.

The issue I highlight in the book is welfare reform.

They know that the column resonates in the community. They know that people like it, and yet they don't have room for one column once week that consistently got it right.

Much of what candidates have to do is raise money and appeal to constituencies or interest groups that can provide that money.

Only a life lived for others is a life worth living.

I'm not perfect; I've never professed to be, and I don't want to be. How much fun is that?

I'm very much in favor of vaccinations, and I've been very vocal about that because it's insane to forgo this.

Attachment to the past and fears concerning the future not only govern the way you select the things you own but also represent the criteria by which you make choices in every aspect of your life, including your relationships with people and your job.

It's like swimming in a lake your whole life and then someone taking you to the ocean.

I'm paranoid about shopping. I get irritable. I find it tedious and taxing. People say shopping is retail therapy, but I need therapy after shopping.

Pure motives can never justify impure or violent action.

Definitely in the West, we're all cast as the same now. Whether you're Indian, Pakistani, Arab, Iranian, Afghan or whatever, you just get thrown into this category. And nine times out of 10, you're depicted as bad.

To write for PC reasons, because you think you ought to be dealing with this subject, is never going to yield anything that is really going to matter to anyone else. It has to matter to you.

I have a life. My kids don't run my house.

Authority must be respected and chosen wisely.

The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later youre hungry again.

The more I like a book, the more slowly I read. this spontaneous talking back to a book is one of the things that makes reading so valuable.

All claims of education notwithstanding, the pupil will accept only that which his mind craves.

Life is full of what-ifs, many of which could easily have been realities, had just a few things been different.

I still can't manage to keep a journal, and people have been telling me to since the fourth grade.

Flowers feed the soul.

The friendship of a great man is a favor of the gods.

I've learned that you can never predict what will happen to a film. You can never predict if people will love it, if they'll hate it. It's an act of ego if you're hoping for everyone to love the film and tell you how great you are.

I have no pretension that I belong in D.C. I mean, I have to be cautious on how we do our restaurant.

Art ought never to be considered except in its relations with its ideal beauty.

It disturbs me that Liverpool are not in the Champions League and fighting for the Premier League.

Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.