Busy people tend to forgo the one activity - TV watching _ that is most lethal to community involvement

What really matters from the point of view of social capital and civic engagement is not merely nominal membership, but active and involved membership.

Young Americans are dropping out of religion at an alarming rate of five to six times the historic rate.

Our national myths often exaggerate the role of the individual heroes and understate the importance of collective effort.

People may go to the library looking mainly for information, but they find each other there.

How well you do in life shouldn't depend on how well your parents did.

Social capital may turn out to be a prerequisite for, rather than a consequence of, effective computer-mediated communication.

Positive people have more friends which is a key factor of happiness and longevity.

None of the people watching 'Big Brother' will bring you chicken soup if you get sick.

Look, we ought to do this for our kids... We ought to have a high school so that every kid who grows up here - they're all our kids - gets a good high school education.

Slavery was, in fact, a social system designed to destroy social capital among slaves and between slaves and freemen.

I do not believe the accusations against my husband, not for one second.

Great hearts can only be made by great troubles. Great faith must have great trials.

Even if a farmer intends to loaf, he gets up in time to get an early start.

When I saw Tyson knocking everybody out on TV, I thought, He's goooood. But when I saw him in person, he didn't look as awesome.

A gentleman is often seen, but very seldom heard to laugh.

Under ordinary circumstances, bad art naturally gets sorted out and disappears. That is how history works when it is left alone to do its job.

Every time I collaborate with an artist, I want to surprise fans. I want to do something new.

All journalists hope that their work will inspire a broader conversation. I think that's just what journalism is.

Obviously, it's some kind of freely commanded modality in the psyche with which we can have a relationship if we will but evolve a control language and a dialogue. And it remains mysterious.

Thus shall you go to the stars.