I don't enjoy going to a very big wedding or a party or a huge gathering where there are lots of people. I enjoy small groups.

Today we all are enjoying the fruits of the digital era. Millions of sources of information coming at us at lightning fast speed. That technology has also democratized the gathering and dissemination of news, allowing for 'citizen journalists' to make their mark, even usurping the role of mainstream news organizations at times.

I think that a lot of people, especially as technology began to speed up and we became more distant, we kind of started to lose our appreciation for human contact and gathering and friendships and a lot of the things that we really took for granted.

In case you haven't heard, my girlfriends and I have declared the summer of 2012 as the best summer ever. The best way to document said 'best summer ever' is with a good ol' disposable camera. Smile, click, move on! Nobody gets pic approval, and there's no time wasted gathering around the camera to analyze a moment that just happened.

I'm not a religious person, and I'm not too interested in being a part of a religion, but I do like having some sort of communal gathering, and having some sense of peoples.

This is the power of gathering: it inspires us, delightfully, to be more hopeful, more joyful, more thoughtful: in a word, more alive.

Getting up at four in the morning to tend the farm while the world is quiet - feeding animals, mucking stalls, gathering eggs, filling water troughs, checking fences, letting animals out into the field - is a high point to my day.

My mom cautioned me not to become a gossip! I was always up in people's business. People told me stuff... even when I didn't ask and I channeled my story gathering and good sources into a hunger for the news.

Foreigners like me have no privacy rights whatsoever. Yet we keep using U.S.-based services all the time, making us a legal target for gathering and storing our private information. Other countries do surveillance as well. But nobody has the global visibility that United States does.

I hardly teach. It's more like a gathering of minds looking at one subject and learning from each other. I enjoy the process.

For some, the very act of intelligence gathering seems illegitimate when applied to the crime of terrorism.

We will use all lawful tools at our disposal, and that includes authorities under the renewed PATRIOT Act. We firmly believe that our intelligence gathering tools must enable us to collect the information we need to protect the American people.

As a former attorney general. I have the greatest respect for the criminal justice system. But it is not good at intelligence gathering.

But it is equally incontrovertible that if our intelligence gathering process is seriously flawed, we had better find out and find out fast if we are to avoid another Sept. 11.

The intelligence community really is a vast bureaucratic entity, and it has been politicized in ways that are not effective for the gathering of intelligence and giving it to senior policymakers.

Maybe it was the home tutoring, or the late start to formal schooling, or an overly cautious and protective upbringing, but in any case, I never became a talkative person. As an adult, I am not always comfortable in social gatherings with small talk. I must have inherited my father's gentle nature.

Far too often, we have limited the definition of the Church. While not in all cases, in many cases, 'Church' has become an informational, inspirational weekly gathering rather than the group of people that God has ordained from Heaven to operate on his behalf on Earth in order to bring Heaven's viewpoint into history.

The table is a meeting place, a gathering ground, the source of sustenance and nourishment, festivity, safety, and satisfaction. A person cooking is a person giving: Even the simplest food is a gift.

Music was a big part of my family with gatherings, picnics, barbecues.

The things that make me happiest in the whole world are going on the occasional picnic, either with my children or with my partner; big family gatherings; and being able to go to the grocery store - if I can get those things in, I'm doing good.

Our failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq thus far has been deeply troubling, and our intelligence-gathering process needs thorough and unbiased investigation.

After my primary school education, I started gathering little children by visiting parents to ask if they wanted somebody to care for their kids by teaching them the Bible. I have never attended any seminary school or Bible college in my life.

You know, songs like 'Rock'n Me' were actually written to be played in large... for a hundred thousand people kind of gatherings. And a lot of what came out on 'Fly Like an Eagle' and 'Book of Dreams' was music that was put together to be played in big, big venues with big light shows.

Muhammad Ali struck us in the middle of America's darkest night, in the heart of its most threatening gathering storm. His power toppled the mightiest of foes, and his intense light shined on America, and we were able to see clearly injustice, inequality, poverty, pride, self realization, courage, laughter, love, joy and religious freedom for all.