Among the New Hollanders whom we were thus engaged with there was one who by his appearance and carriage as well in the morning as this afternoon seemed to be the chief of them and a kind of prince or captain among them.

As soon as I began it seemed impossible to write fast enough - I wrote faster than I would write a letter - two thousand to three thousand words in a morning and I cannot help it.

It was morning through the high window I saw the pure bright blue of the sky as it hovered cheerfully over the long roofs of the neighboring houses. It too seemed full of joy as if it had special plans and had put on its finest clothes for the occasion.

This morning I went to wipe my hands on a tea towel and while I was using it it seemed like it felt a bit light. I unfolded it and realized my daughter had cut little bits out of it to make frocks for her dolls!

It was a splendid summer morning and it seemed as if nothing could go wrong.

My brother Trevor is theatrically trained. I used to watch him when I was younger and I was in love with it. It just seemed really fun to be someone else. So I begged my mom she was hesitant but she eventually allowed me. And it turned out well I guess.

I read somewhere that Mitt and I have a 'storybook marriage.' Well in the storybooks I read there were never long long rainy winter afternoons in a house with five boys screaming at once. And those storybooks never seemed to have chapters called MS or breast cancer.

I decided very early on just to accept life unconditionally I never expected it to do anything special for me yet I seemed to accomplish far more than I had ever hoped. Most of the time it just happened to me without my ever seeking it.

I looked at longevity in show business when I was about 13 and the people who seemed to have longevity were the ones who'd spent quite a bit of time learning about what they were doing before they made it.

When I started learning the cello I fell in love with the instrument because it seemed like a voice - my voice.

As I was coming up it always seemed like I was learning. If it wasn't from school it was the 'hood. The influences of the 'hood are very powerful.

I mean Emily Harris was his wife. And she seemed to resent his leadership but on the other hand she felt like a good soldier that he had to be the leader.

Given political history in Chile it seemed to me that there was a critical task of consolidating a democracy and creating healthy civic-military and political-military relationships.

War had always seemed to me to be a purely human behavior. Accounts of warlike behavior date back to the very first written records of human history it seemed to be an almost universal characteristic of human groups.

From Jefferson to Jackson to Lincoln to FDR to Reagan every great president inspires enormous affection and enormous hostility. We'll all be much saner I think if we remember that history is full of surprises and things that seemed absolutely certain one day are often unimaginable the next.

Having bought furniture for my own house and bought furniture for our house in Washington a furniture store seemed like a good idea and it also played into my personal history.

Obama seemed poised to realign American politics after his stunning 2008 victory. But the economy remains worse than even the administration's worst-case scenarios and the long legislative battles over health care reform financial services reform and the national debt and deficit have taken their toll. Obama no longer looks invincible.