"The real miracle of Christmas is the incarnation -- that's the thing that makes that little baby in the manger different from every other baby..." < more>

"... Information is light. Information in itself, about anything, is light... The universe is made of stories, not atoms... " < more>

"... grandmother was a famous murderer in Long Island. She murdered her second husband out in South Hampton and hid his body in the attic for five months. An uncle who's in Sing Sing and an aunt who was in hiding for awhile before she turned her mother in for the murder... I went from not knowing any type of blood to finding out I'm from bad blood, bad blood, bad blood..." < more>

"...a Catholic and I practice, but at the same time I have an open-mindedness to many other expressions of spirituality that come through different religions I've spent some time reading and thinking about [religion] and trying to study it, and I've arrived at not so much a sense of the differences, but a sense of the similarities in so many ways; the value-system roots and linkages between the Torah, the Qur'an, and the Bible and the fundamental story that runs through all of this, that really connects all of us... fascinated by the transcendentalists and the pantheists and others who found these great connections just in nature, in trees, the ponds, the ripples of the wind on the pond, the great feast of nature itself..." Certainly it's not hard to figure who's nailed the flower-child-Age-of-Aquarius-Krishna-Consciousness-follow-the-Beatles-to-the-Maharishi vote... < more>

"God," he remembers praying on this unforgettable night of Dec. 13, 1966, "I do not desire to be president of my country or my company. I desire to know You. I want You to take my life and use it for Your good purpose, whatever that means and I don't know what it means." During his sleepless night, Woodall says he discovered the meaning of repentance... < more>

Among the characteristics of wintertime are political realignment, fundamental economic change, a shift in the nation's psyche and a willingness among citizens to coalesce and make private sacrifice... < more>

Each door has a sign on it. One says HEAVEN; the other says LECTURE ON HEAVEN. All the co-dependent adult children are lined up in front of the door that says LECTURE ON HEAVEN... < more>

Louie was born with severe birth defects, including a clubfoot, and very bad asthma. His mother shoved him a state institution and he never got schooling... < more>

In helping clean out my childhood home after my dad's death, I saved an old plaque from the kitchen wall that reads, "Only one life..." < more>

Burger King's new S&M-tinged internet ad campaign highlights a video of a man in a lingerie-clad chicken suit... < more>

[Peter] Jennings... would have us believe the apostle was a puritanical, homophobic, anti-Semitic chauvinist pig whose ministry centered on not circumcising babies... < more>

When I was a kid my dad couldn't stand... the sitcom M*A*S*H... and simply had no stomach for the way the show misrepresented and mocked the experience. I have a similar reaction to Bill Moyers... < more>

He warns the young men not to act as 'the bad men in baggy pants' in America, but to work hard and study hard and always be mindful of their responsibility as the future of Sudan... < more>

A friend from my newspaper days in Chicago said, "I really believe this administration will destroy the world..." < more>

For some time now, a guy spray-painted from head-to-toe in silver metallic has been coming to Columbus Circle at Central Park and standing still... < more>

For years now, I've had people tell me they've been turned off... < more>

I am currently working on a piece for this week about problems I have... < more>

When Katharine Hepburn died at the end of last month I got several unexpected phonecalls... < more>

I was talking to a friend yesterday about my inability so far to write... < more>

Mark Twain from 1899: "Almost all lies are acts, and speech has no part in them... < more>

Walking past a beautiful old Methodist Church in midtown Manhattan yesterday I noticed its sermon board had a quote about how life's not the cards dealt to you but how well you play them... < more>

Saddam Hussein is not a Madman we can pass off as insane or psychotic, but is actually a "malignant narcissist," say two experts... < more>

Someone I know informed me recently that he believed in Jesus Christ as his Savior but thought the Bible was deliberately written as myth in some parts... <more>

My 92-year-old great aunt, Nel Wolf, lives in Sutton, W.V., a little town on the Kanawha River with approximately 1,100 residents. The Sunday of my visit just before Easter happened to be when the news first broke that our P.O.W.s had been set free by Iraqis... <more>

Flipping TV channels one morning the other week, I caught a hidden video of two young girls in pajamas guzzling vodka from a bottle as they sat on a bed in a darkened bedroom... <more>

Just yesterday, waiting in line at the grocery, I noticed Eminem on the cover of a new magazine called CosmoGirl, posing shyly as the teenage "heartthrob" for 14-year-old girls (times have certainly changed since Robby Benson was the "beefcake" for Teen Beat)... <more>