The pleasures of afternoon tea run like a trickle of honey through English literature from Rupert Brooke's wistful lines on the Old Vicarage at Grantchester to Miss Marple, calmly dissecting a case over tea cakes at a seaside hotel.

The president says he feels compassion for me, but the best way to show that compassion is by meeting with me and the other mothers and families who are here, ... Our sons made the ultimate sacrifice and we want answers. All we're asking is that he sacrifice an hour out of his five-week vacation to talk to us, before the next mother loses her son in Iraq.

The president has deep respect for the pope, and he also has great compassion and sympathy for the 168 victims of the Oklahoma City bombing and their families.

The primary thing writing and basketball share is the sense that each time you go out, each time you play or begin a piece, it's a new day. You can score 40 points one game, but the next game, those points don't count. You can win the Nobel Literature Prize, but that doesn't make the next sentence of the next book appear.

The passage of time hasn't changed the fact that abortion is a serious, lethal violation of fundamental human rights, and that women and children deserve better, and that the demands of justice, generosity, and compassion require that the right to life be guaranteed to everyone.