“In today's world, these are not funny things. Maybe if you are a professional comic on cable TV, you can get away with it. But not when you are in public life.”
“Throughout our history, there has been an ebb and flow of one branch being a little more powerful, the president getting a little more power, then congress being more powerful, ... Don't Know Much About History.”
“But it's that flexibility, that elasticity of the Constitution that allows for that, and so that's part of its extraordinary brilliance that has allowed it to last as long as it has.”
“A lot of Americans have some view of the Constitution as just this thing that was handed down [intact]. But it really was the result of months and months of wrangling and disputation and ultimately compromise. That's where the brilliance of the American system is -- it's always been built on compromise.”
“The friends come in here the first few days, ... But after the first week, he's forgotten. Then he's off to (long-term care) Drake, where he will spend his shortened life on a ventilator. His friends don't see what the rest of his life looks like. There's no funeral. He's just gone from the neighborhood.”
