Washington's answer to a self-inflicted financial crisis reminded Americans why they so deeply distrust the political class. The 'fiscal cliff' process was secretive and sloppy and the nation's so-called leadership lacked the political courage to address our root problems: joblessness and debt.
Is it not careless to become too local when there are four hundred billion stars in our galaxy alone.
The biggest opportunity in 2013 is in Africa. It has seven out of the ten fastest-growing economies in the world. In Nigeria alone there are 100 million people with mobile phones. In total 300 million Africans - five times the population of Britain - are in the middle class.
I understand and get when kids and teenagers feel like they're alone and it's not going to get better. My advice is that there is a support system out there there are a lot of people who have been through what you're going through and are going through it now.
One definition of eternity is that we are not alone on this planet that there are those who've gone before and those who will come and that there is a community of spirits.
As for style there is something about the way musicians dress-they seem to be able to create their own world within their fashion alone.
I made some friends at Listerine and they taught me a little bit about oral care. That half of adults suffer from oral disease that the number one chronic disease among children is oral disease that we're only taking care of 25% of our mouths when brushing alone and there are more germs in your mouth than there are people on the planet.
Whoever wants to know something about me - as an artist which alone is significant - they should look attentively at my pictures and there seek to recognise what I am and what I want.
People like eccentrics. Therefore they will leave me alone saying that I am a mad clown.
With fame there is a crosswire between intensity and intimacy. You have decoy intimacy but you are also very much alone.
I had to weave and play around with a honey bear you know and I could wrestle with him a little bit but there's no way you can even wrestle a honey bear let alone a grizzly bear that's standing ten feet to eleven feet tall! Can you imagine? But it was fascinating to work that close to that kind of animal.
Whatever my individual desires were to be free I was not alone. There were many others who felt the same way.
I'm not saying that there's anything better than mated bliss at its best but I'm saying that living alone is as good in its own way. But we haven't quite given ourselves permission to recognize that.
It is eerie being all but alone in Westminster Abbey. Without the tourists there are only the dead many of them kings and queens. They speak powerfully and put my thoughts into vivid perspective.
As a child I wanted only two things - to be left alone to read my library books and to get away from my provincial hometown and go to London to be a writer. And I always knew that when I got there I wanted to make loads of money.
The thing I like about baseball is that it's one-on-one. You stand up there alone and if you make a mistake it's your mistake. If you hit a home run it's your home run.
As a young man even if I was going to see a play or a film by myself I didn't feel like I was alone. There was something that was unfolding up there that brought me into it. And I recognised that. For those two hours it made me feel like I belonged to something really good.
I'm a grown woman and sometimes I might be a little fat you know? Am I alone there? Not really.
There is no end to the violations committed by children on children quietly talking alone.
There are times when the only access I have to the truest person that I am is when I'm alone and trying to solve a sentence. It's exciting even when it's frustrating even when I can't do it right.
People talk about the conscience but it seems to me one must just bring it up to a certain point and leave it there. You can let your conscience alone if you're nice to the second housemaid.
I thought about how we need to make children feel that there are times in their lives when they need to be alone and quiet and to be able to accept their aloneness.
In Turkey you're not allowed to be left alone in the hospital. The nurse teaches the family how to do things and somebody is always there with the patient.
For the last third of life there remains only work. It alone is always stimulating rejuvenating exciting and satisfying.
Worse there cannot be a better I believe there may be by giving energy to the capital and skill of the country to produce exports by increasing which alone can we flatter ourselves with the prospect of finding employment for that part of our population now unemployed.