Any celebration meal to which guests are invited, be they family or friends, should be an occasion for generous hospitality.

Atheists have to live with the knowledge that there is no salvation, no redemption, no second chances. Lives can go terribly wrong in ways that can never be put right.

Waiting is so unusual that many of us can't stand in a queue for 30 seconds without getting out our phones to check for messages or to Google something.

The greatest moral failing is to condemn something as a moral failing: no vice is worse than being judgmental.

I don't think anyone who genuinely embraced sincerity, charity and modesty could be intolerant or divisive.

You don't choose what you believe moment to moment, but choices you have made do shape what you come to believe.

Economics is uncertain because its fundamental subject matter is not money but human action. That's why economics is not the dismal science, it's no science at all.

Being able and willing to complain is what makes us rational and moral animals, capable of seeing and articulating the difference between how things are and how they should be.

Love is indeed at root the product of the firings of neurons and release of hormones.

It may not have the virtuous ring of the golden rule, but the maxim "never say never" is one of the most important in ethics.

Dover's cliffs call to mind the Roman invasion; the Battle of Britain; our proximity to, yet difference from, mainland Europe; and international trade and exploration, both fair and exploitative.

Leaving yourself behind is the worst loss a person can know.

One who is seeking the truth sooner or later finds a woman.

I kind of tend to do most of my adventures in my mind.

The mechanics of putting one spot of color next to another, that is the fundamental thing.

Life has a way of overgrowing its achievements as well as its ruins.

Only on the edge of the grave can man conclude anything.

As hideous and dumb as it sounds, I wouldn't be at all surprised by an invasion of Iraq on September II. I'll take a long shot bet on that.

School is an institution built on the axiom that learning is the result of teaching. And institutional wisdom continues to accept this axiom, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

It's okay to learn from every experience, and it's okay to make mistakes.

Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but that's the only way you can do anything really good.