"Sam Spade: Ten thousand? We were talking about a lot more money than this. Kasper Gutman: Yes, sir, we were, but this is genuine coin of the realm. With a dollar of this, you can buy ten dollars of talk." The Maltese Falcon

"And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger." Luke 2:16

"anyone who, walking through the streets at night, hears the bells begin suddenly to laugh and thunder upon Christmas Eve will find it difficult to persuade himself that something of thrilling import to humanity has not at that moment occurred." G.K. Chesterton, "Christmas Day," reprinted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 6 #3 (December 2002)

In my latest National Post column I look back at the year now ending and say we can be more intelligent and decent in the next one.

"It is true that I do believe in fairy tales; in the sense that I marvel so much at what does exist that I am readier to admit what might." G.K. Chesterton in New Witness quoted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 9 #4 (January-February 2006)

"The mark of civilization, says [Yale professor David] Gelernter, is the shortening of the list of reasons that justify taking human life. But now footnotes are being added to the list." Richard John Neuhaus in First Things January 2004

In a Christmastime piece for Convivium (a Cardus publication) today I explain how my lack of musical talent has lately come to seem a valuable, if peculiar, gift.

"Sow a thought and you reap an act;/ Sow an act and you reap a habit;/ Sow a habit and you reap a character;/ Sow a character and you reap a destiny." "Anonymous" quoted by Michael Novak in Business as a Calling