My mom is from Canada. Both my grandparents were from Canada.

There's no bias when it comes to facts, and there's no bias when it comes to decency.

The only politician in my family was my grandfather's grandfather, who was the mayor of Winnipeg from Jan. 1, 1917, until Jan. 5, 1917, because he lost the recount. So he was mayor of Winnipeg for four days.

Whenever journalism students ask me what they should be doing, I say that if you're on social media, you should be following a ton of people that you don't necessarily agree with just to get their perspectives.

My dad's a hero in a lot of ways. He was a 1960s and 1970s hippie and a member of the protest crowd.

They say history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.

Don't get me wrong: politicians have been lying for a long time, long before Donald Trump was born, but the degree of just nonstop rage, grievance, prevarication, I haven't seen, probably because we haven't had a direct line from a politician's id to the public before.

Normally, at a debate or a town hall, I would be quick to say to someone, 'That was rude,' or, 'We're going to try to keep it civil here,' or, 'Let's not have personal attacks.'

It's the exact opposite of my job to take what the government says at face value and say, 'This is the truth because the government says it, and the government never lies.'

Equating brutality and despotism with leadership is not an American value.

Mean is easy. Mean is lazy. Mean is self-satisfied and slothful.

I have very vivid memories of my parents talking about Nixon, my mom watching Watergate on the black-and-white set in the living room. The mayor at the time in Philadelphia was a guy named Frank Rizzo - a Democrat, a real bully, a racist.

Exercise has its hazards. Runners are sidelined by shinsplints, freestylists by swimmer's ear, and who hasn't heard of tennis elbow? But the fitness buff of the '90s has a far greater worry. StairMaster Butt.

I have a wife and a son and daughter. What do I need to do to make their lives better, happier? What can I do in terms of my time or my attention given that I am very busy at work? That's a personal rule of thumb I live by from the moment I get up to the moment I go to bed.

I don't want to compare President Obama and President Trump on these issues, because they're different, and the scale isn't even remotely the same. But President Obama said things that weren't true and got away with it more for a variety of reasons, and one is the media was much more supportive of him.

I still think of myself as a Philadelphian. I still root for the Philadelphia teams. Other than my house, I still feel most at home in terms of cities when I'm in Philly.

My job is to not take for granted when somebody says, 'Oh, this is all just a made-up, phony scandal,' or, 'What this person did put the U.S. government at risk.'

Resist the temptation to subject yourself only to that which re-affirms what you already think.

You know what takes effort? Being kind, being patient, being respectful, telling someone how you feel politely instead of just avoiding them for six weeks.

My journalistic heroes are Peter Jennings and Ted Koppel and Tim Russert and Edward R. Murrow, among others, because they were tough.

Washington, as we know it, is essentially run by men and women who are not elected or even appointed to their posts, staff members unaccountable to traditional constituencies. They rise according to the needs and whims of their own special constituency of elites.

We all know members of the House and Senate - especially the House - who are just crazy and say things that aren't true, Democrats and Republicans.

I've conditioned myself to believe that almonds are a completely delicious snack, and that they don't taste like paper or get stuck in the back of my mouth.

I don't really get nervous anymore unless there's a big interview.

CNN wants me to tell the news in a way that seems genuine and authentic. They don't want me to be Ron Burgundy.

We've gone through many different permutations of coffee-making, from grinding our own beans to the regular drip to an iced coffee maker.

My mom is a hero in a lot of ways because she's the most empathetic and kind person I've ever met.

I certainly don't think that it's the job of any journalist to make the presidency work.

If the Trump White House and their allies in the media want to have this conversation about decency, I welcome them to the table to talk about it. But there's a bunch of stuff that they need to get caught up on before we get to a comedian at the White House dinner.

Embrace the humanity of everyone, especially those you don't understand.

My mom is a nurse; my dad is a pediatrician. They were born in the 1940s, and they were both inspired to fight against injustice, whether it was the injustices of the Vietnam War or Watergate or children in poverty or oppression of African Americans in Philadelphia where I was growing up.

Everybody should work in their nation's capitol and see how politics actually work because it was the most eye opening experience of my life.

It took me years to realize I wanted to be in journalism.

My job, in general, is nonfiction, so writing fiction was liberating. If you can't find the answer to something, you just make it up!

When you write fiction, there were things about Washington that I've experienced and wanted to write about, including the swamping nature of it, the compromises people come to town and are forced to make, and also, when writing about Joe McCarthy, the indecency and lies that he put forward that people didn't take a stand about.

I get a lot of heat from the Left, which is bizarre. I get a lot of heat from the Right, too, but the vitriol is from the Left.

I lost a great uncle in World War II who was with the Royal Canadian Air Force.

Probably like a lot of people, my personal politics are all over the map.

It's not always easy for a mainstream organization to accept what a blog is.

We often think our legacy will be our achievements. But often our legacy will be whether we set a moral standard.

Actors are tough because they're not used to challenging questions - other than from paparazzi. And so you just ask one perfectly legitimate question, but one that they're not comfortable answering, and all of a sudden they look at you, and you're the paparazzi.

I'm quite calm when all is well.

Politicians lie.

I did freelance cartooning off and on from college graduation in 1991 through ABC News hiring me in 2003. I did a weekly comic strip for 'Roll Call' for about nine years. I sold cartoons and caricatures to 'The Los Angeles Times' and 'The Washington Post.' I drew as much as I could. It's really tough to make a living doing it.

Professionally and personally, I try to be as agnostic as possible, try to see things as objectively as possible.

McCarthyism and Trumpism are very different. They stand for very different things, but the technique of the big lie, smearing and telling lies, you know, McCarthy was doing that. At the time, the media, Democrats, and Republicans were all paralyzed - not all, but most of them were paralyzed. They didn't know how to deal with this.

My job is to be skeptical: skeptical of people like Edward Snowden and skeptical of the U.S. government.

There's a long tradition in this country of questioning generals.

I think there is room for improvement for all of the media, and that certainly, and especially, includes me.

Nastiness and mockery and meanness sometimes seem as if they're spreading like a contagion.