Thinking about the right thing to do, now and in the imaginable future.

On the obsession with the sexual and social habits of American teenage girls.

More and more Americans are trying to survive on less than $2 a day.

“The tragedy of Dorothy Parker, it seems to me, isn’t that she succumbed to alcoholism or died essentially alone. It was that she was too intelligent to believe that she had made the most of herself.”

On the 1988 presidential election and the boys on the bus.

“I’ll tell you what freedom is to me: no fear. I mean really, no fear!”

A trip to the zoo, Charlie Kaufman’s new film, and human despair.

How a tattooed video store clerk with a history of drinking and drug use ended up at an Islamic self-help class leading to the birth of ISIS.

Dolphins may have the capacity for mourning, and elephants sometimes bury their dead.

How the prolific crime novelist did his work.

On America, Christianity, and “ignorance, intolerance, and belligerent nationalism.”

The aftereffects of youthful escapes into movie houses.

The Pope’s vision for addressing climate change.

Creating – and revising – the Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm.

On the particular genius of Tolstoy.

On the failing institution of the teaching hospital.

“Russian humor is slapstick, only you actually die.”

Memories of “Hollywood’s most grinding bore,” Ronald Reagan.

One famous critic (Adler) takes another (Pauline Kael) to task for a collection of reviews that is “without Kael- or Simon-like exaggeration, not simply, jarringly, piece by piece, line by line, and without interruption, worthless.”

Joan Didion versus the boys on the bus:

American reporters “like” covering a presidential campaign (it gets them out on the road, it has balloons, it has music, it is viewed as a big story, one that leads to the respect of one’s peers, to the Sunday shows, to lecture fees and often to Washington), which is one reason why there has developed among those who do it so arresting an enthusiasm for overlooking the contradictions inherent in reporting that which occurs only in order to be reported.

Joseph Mitchell used composites in his non-fiction, invented characters and added flourishes to his facts. Does it matter?

A treatment for liver cancer gives the writer a fresh perspective on illness – and wellness.

The great director always refused to get liposuction.

She was not just a poet, she was an “event” in American literature all by herself.