Some of the higher price of L.A. real estate does reflect the intrinsic pleasure of living there, as I'm reminded every time I walk out my door into the perfect weather.

Like Disneyland, luxury retailers have long had to figure out how to overcome customers' natural inertia. Unlike less pricey stores, they tend not to attract idle browsers who make impulse purchases.

In a dynamic, decentralized system of individual choice and responsibility, people do not have to trust any authority but their own.

Glamour is translucent not transparent, not opaque. It invites us into the world but it doesn't give us a completely clear picture.

We know beauty when we see it, and our reactions are remarkably consistent. Beauty is not just a social construct, and not every girl is beautiful just the way she is.

Storage problems make neon signs the most ephemeral of commercial arts.

Our eyes and brains pretty consistently like some human forms better than others. Shown photos of strangers, even babies look longer at the faces adults rank the best-looking.

Dialysis does not make patients well. It simply postpones their deaths.

Apple doesn't need to maximize book sales. It simply needs to keep publishers happy enough to maintain an impressive-sounding inventory of titles while waiting for entirely new forms of publishing to develop.

A standard 'well woman' checkup can last as little as 10 minutes, hardly time for any in-depth discussions.

In 'The Future and Its Enemies,' I argue that individual creativity and enterprise are not only personally satisfying but socially good, producing progress and happiness. For celebrating creativity and happiness, I have been called a fascist by critics on both coasts.

Society needs both parents and nonparents, both the work party and the home party. While raising children is the most important work most people will do, not everyone is cut out for parenthood. And, as many a childless teacher has proved, raising kids is not the only important contribution a person can make to their future.

The Internet ethos of diversity and competition runs exactly counter to uniform, gatekeeper-oriented medical culture -- the technocratic philosophy of the 'one best way' embodied in our pharmaceutical regulations. On the Net, medical information is abundant, and pharmacies, domestic and foreign, operate on many different models.

Before it became a ubiquitous part of urban life, Starbucks was, in most American cities, a radically new idea.

Although people often equate them, glamour is not the same as beauty, stylishness, luxury, celebrity, or sex appeal. It is not limited to fashion or film; nor is it intrinsically feminine. It is not a collection of aesthetic markers -- a style, as fashion and design use the word.

Habituation is indeed a fact of human psychology. That's one reason we like novelty, including different cuts of jeans.

Surprise drives progress because innovation depends on the sort of knowledge no one can gather in a central place.

The mobile middle class gravitates to the cities where housing is affordable.

Bill Clinton has done some incredibly reckless, irresponsible things as president. But his campaign to expand Medicare entitlements has to rank among the worst.

Even before Sputnik, scientists and policy makers worried that not enough Americans were studying science.