GENE WEINGARTEN

For $60, I once bought a neck massage at a 'massage parlor' that advertised in 'The Washington Post.'

I am the most skilled parallel parker the world has ever known.

I felt like I was never going to be a great writer. I felt like I was going to be a good writer at best. I wanted to be great at something.

Sometimes, homely things are done for the best reasons in the world and thus achieve a beauty of their own.

The Pulitzer is a crapshoot. Your piece has to hit a few people the right way at the right moment.

The whole point of corporate mascots is to be distinctive. No one in his right mind would ever confuse the Hamburglar with Mayor McCheese.

When she was too young to resist, or even to understand, I turned my daughter into a lifelong, rabid Yankees fan.

Because I live and work in Washington, D.C., I have a ringside seat at the world capital of The Persuasive Arts, or, as I like to call it, The Opinions Racket.

I have two favorites: Reading Kierkegaard while listening to Mozart's Piano Concerto 9 in E Flat Major, and reading early Bazooka Joe comics in Hebrew.

What if this world of ours is not based on presumptions of magic? What if this world is really 'What we see is what we get'... Would that be so bad? ... There is a secular magic in everything around us. The world is beautiful. We have love; we should take care of each other. That is not a frightening concept for any parent to deliver to a child.

When you are interviewing someone, don't just write down what he says. Ask yourself: Does this guy remind you of someone? What does the room feel like? Notice smells, voice inflection, neighborhoods you pass through. Be a cinematographer.

While it is true that many hep C victims became infected through blood transfusions or organ transplants or in other innocent ways, mine was contracted during my college years, when I showed as much care for my personal health as your average suicide bomber.

I don't think there is prejudice against atheists the same way there is prejudice against fat people. I don't think people hate or contemn atheists; I think people feel sorry for atheists.

Shakespeare was such a splendid vulgarian.

I believe that sensitivity to issues of race and ethnicity is important, and nuanced, even more so when it intersects with the issue of free speech.

When my daughter was a senior in high school, I remember noticing, almost in passing, that her friends were very cute. Which made me realize her friends' fathers probably found Molly very cute.

I have some advice: Unless she is pregnant or handicapped, don't give up a seat to a woman unless you KNOW she is well over 60. Trust me on this, even if I am a liberal.

I think we too often go soft in trying to spare people the agony of confronting reality.

On Twitter, people like me regularly get called "sore losers" by Trumpeters. It just makes me roll my eyes. This is not about winning and losing. We all lost, even them, they just don't know it yet.

Is it really the right of the media to dictate to the president whom he will allow in his press conferences? That's tetchier. And then there is the added issue of whether it would be a service to their readers, and the country at large, for, say, the Washington Post to take itself out of the room -- meaning they don't have the ability to ask important questions the president is obliged to answer? I think that would be a mistake.

I think Hillary Clinton will make a fine president, and (most important) I am comfortable with her making gigantic, momentous decisions.

I don't think the people of Chicago should be robbed of their birthright to be perennial losers.

I always thought there was some cleverness to the joke diet in which you could eat as much as you want and as often as you want, but everything must be consumed naked in front of a full-length mirror. That would deter me!

Donald Trump is a boor, and cannot stop being a boor.