Morgan Freeman brings a sublime dignity and self-mastery to the role of Mandela.

NEWYORKER: Invictus

And Joey, in his precocious self-mastery, seldom found it necessary to be mean to her in front of his friends indeed, he may have figured that to have an actual groupie could only reinforce his social primacy.

NEWYORKER: Good Neighbors

The twenties, possibly alone among the middle decades of life, are passionately celebrated in fiction and memoirs, and the celebrations tend to share a style that is personal, specific, cliquish, pastiched, breathless, often bibulous, and flagrantly confessional the voice of early mastery without mature constraint, self-discovery at a moment when each revelation seems unique.

NEWYORKER: Semi-Charmed Life