Nancy Gibbs

“A good president needs a big comfort zone. He should be able to treat enemies as opportunities, appear authentic in joy and grief, stay cool under the hot lights.”

“There was a time when researchers imagined that Plan B, or the morning-after pill, might become not an emergency form of contraception but a routine one; women would take it once a month to induce a period and never even know whether they had gotten pregnant.”

“Summer is not obligatory. We can start an infernally hard jigsaw puzzle in June with the knowledge that, if there are enough rainy days, we may just finish it by Labor Day, but if not, there's no harm, no penalty. We may have better things to do.”

“While many alien species are harmless, others pose expensive threats to seas and fields and forests.”

“Americans sometimes ask what the government does and where their tax money goes. Among other things, it pays for all kinds of invisible but essential safety nets and life belts and guardrails that are useless right up until the day they are priceless.”

“A president can't go to every memorial service.”

“High school is a haunted house in April, when seniors act up because the end is near. Even those who hate school sometimes cling to the devil they know. And for the kids who love it, the goodbyes are hard to think about.”

“Be bored and see where it takes you, because the imagination's dusty wilderness is worth crossing if you want to sculpt your soul.”

“There are many things that matter much more than an editor's gender in shaping the direction of the leadership.”

“Some people are born strong or stretchy, or with a tungsten will.”

“It is actually the neuroscientists and evolutionists who do the best job of explaining the reasons behind the most unreasonable behavior.”

“Once a conflict has dragged on for a decade, most people are tired of war - and the troubles that flow from it.”

“After 9/11, whatever the evidence of intelligence failures, many people still saw that attack as almost unimaginable, so brutal and brazen an assault.”

“George W. Bush, though a president's son, is cast as Reagan's heir even more than his father's.”

“We are bombarded with reasons to stay inside: we're afraid of mosquitoes because of West Nile and grass because of pesticides and sun because of cancer and sunscreen because of vitamin-D deficiency.”

“I've been grateful that 'Time's' reach and mandate is so broad; anything you're interested in, you can usually write about.”

“People don't blame the act of driving for auto accidents.”

“There may be no less original idea than the notion that our hearts hold dominion over our heads.”

“Power is a tool, influence is a skill; one is a fist, the other a fingertip.”

“Whatever people thought the first time they held a portable phone the size of a shoe in their hands, it was nothing like where we are now, accustomed to having all knowledge at our fingertips.”