Niki Tsongas

There are wives who are very involved with their husbands' offices and really take their responsibility seriously in terms of issues and things like that. I was never very comfortable with being part of that.

There are clearly many good politicians who are guided by religious belief, so the mix can work. But there's a line to be drawn. It would be hugely dangerous for a country's laws to be set by the scriptures, and particularly those of the expansionist religions.

I don't believe in writer's block. Think about it - when you were blocked in college and had to write a paper, didn't it always manage to fix itself the night before the paper was due? Writer's block is having too much time on your hands.

By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.