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It's kind of hard to spend long hours trying to help people and then find out that the favorite game of the columnist is to sit back and second guess you and try to find something that you did wrong.

Don't commit to being a columnist unless you're willing to do it right. Report your behind off, so you have something original and useful to say. Say it in a way that will interest someone other than you, your family and your sources.

I don't know any other columnists, and I don't know what they do. I work the single! And nobody does what I do, anyway.

High-profile columnists should remember they are in a privileged position. Writing isn't a dreadfully specific skill - it's taught to millions via our schooling system. And opinions? Well, I've yet to meet people without opinions.

I used to write a monthly column for the 'New York Times' syndicate. But I stopped because I found it really hard to have one extreme opinion a month. I don't know how these columnists have two or three ideas a week; I was having difficulty having 12 things to say a year.

Things that appear on the front page of the newspaper as 'fact' are far more dangerous than the games played by a novelist, and can lead to wars.

A politician wouldn't dream of being allowed to call a columnist the things a columnist is allowed to call a politician.

There may not be much future for the kind of sports column I did.

One danger, when you're writing lots of quick, opinionated blog items about the latest developments, is that you never get around to stating fully, in one place, what you think about a particular topic.

As a columnist, I realize that whatever amount of corruption I expose, half my readers will block it out, although they may get a frisson of joy in the process.