There's a truly great Irish poet. His name is Brendan Kennelly, and he has this epic poem called the Book of Judas, and there's a line in that poem that never leaves my mind, it says: 'If you want to serve the age, betray it.' What does that mean, to betray the age? Well to me betraying the age means exposing its conceits, it's foibles; it's phony moral certitudes. It means telling the secrets of the age and facing harsher truths.

I didn't expect change to come so slow, so agonizingly slow. I didn't realize that the biggest obstacle to political and social progress wasn't the Free Masons…

Every age has its massive moral blind spots. We might not see them, but our children will. Slavery was one of them and the people who best served that age were…

So I humbly accept the honor, keeping in mind the words of a British playwright, John Mortimer it was, 'No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common …