A society that fears knowledge is a society that fears itself.

The only thing binding individuals together is ideas. Ideas mutate and spread; they change their hosts as much as their hosts change them.

I try not to be surprised. Surprise is the public face of a mind that has been closed.

Thought, like any parasite, cannot exist without a compliant host.

Human spirit is the ability to face the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and optimism.

Many scholars have complained of our tendency to see history only in conflicts, but I am not convinced they are right. It is in conflict that our values are exposed.

... from our vantage point it is now clear that the only thing the population had to fear was fear itself.

Which came first, the mind or the idea of the mind? Have you never wondered? They arrived together. The mind is an idea.

In the end, living is defined by dying.

Unable to attribute misfortune to chance, unable to accept their ultimate insignificance within the greater scheme, the people looked for monsters in their midst.

Sometimes, even the very best course of action fails.

Marriage is a game. They (the anxious and powerful) set the rules. We (the ordinary and subversive) bow obediently before those rules. And then we go home and do whatever the hell we want anyhow.

How well you do things should be incidental, not integral, to the way you regard yourself.

There is no humanity or charity in destroying self-reliance, dignity, and self-respect.

Marriage equality - I think that it's a constitutionally guaranteed right. Let's end the drug wars. Let's balance the federal budget, and that means reforming the entitlements - Medicaid, Medicare.

Think, walk, talk and act like a nonsmoker and you will soon be one

Anyone who has lived through it, or those who are now living through it, knows that caring about an addict is as complex and fraught and debilitating as addiction itself.

A lot of the stories are internal. They leak it to me wanting to get attention, wanting to get that headline. More times than not, I will not give it to them.

I care much more about saving the lives of mothers and babies than I do about a fancy museum somewhere.

Holiness is not a privilege of a few but a need for all.

The equity of Providence has balanced peculiar sufferings with peculiar enjoyments.