TFOB Part 4

(Yes, I am milking the experience for an entire week's posts.)

Random Quotes from Random Authors on Saturday:

Martin Walker:  "Macron is Trump with table manners"

Jonathan Lethem: "Write the book you want to read." (He didn't claim authorship, but it was new to me so I'm giving him credit.)

And Jonathan Lethem, again, on why we love stories:  "Human gossip - from Cain and Abel - who did what to whom and why."

An author responding a lengthy question:  "I like the word sheriff."

To round off my day, I spent the 4 o'clock hour with H. W. Brands, one of TBG's favorite historical biographers.  It was a master class in democracy.  Here are some gems:

The Constitution gave us a Republic.  Jefferson, with All men are created equal, gave us a democracy.

(Quoting Benjamin Rush) Without a King or a Central Church, how will we create a moral society 

Rush is the tofu of the Founding Fathers.  Anyone on any side can quote him. 

The frontier used to be the solution to our domestic problems.  We had room to grow.

If democracy has a failing, it's that short term problems rarely get solved.  There's an incoherence in the current framework to solve our problems. 

We can be comforted and reassured that these same problems were in existence at the founding.