Civility, it is said, means obeying the unenforceable.

Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers.

I have never been especially impressed by the heroics of people convinced they are about to change the world. I am more awed by those who struggle to make one small difference.

Most people do not consider dawn to be an attractive experience - unless they are still up.

Maybe this year, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives not looking for flaws, but looking for potential.

The central struggle of parenthood is to let our hopes for our children outweigh our fears.

I regard this novel as a work without redeeming social value, unless it can be recycled as a cardboard box.

What he labels sexual, she labels harassment.

Today, much of journalism and politics are in a kind of collusion to oversimplify and personalize issues. No room for ambivalence. Plenty of room for the personal attack.

Ultimately, time is all you have and the idea isn't to save it, but to savour it.

Our 'mistakes' become our crucial parts, sometimes our best parts, of the lives we have made.

The Church should be more concerned about the hearts of the lost rather than the comforts of the saved.

In science the important thing is to modify and change one's ideas as science advances.

Friends are seldom found; they are made.

One arrives at style only with atrocious effort, with fanatical and devoted stubbornness.

And you let go of your chance.

Laughter is the evidence that we're still here, the proof that our tragedies will not define us forever. Laughter is the language of the survivor.

So many people have that relationship. The companionship. The connection. To our - to other beings, our pets. I hate to call them pets. But you know, to other creatures that we share our lives with.

Hate isn’t the most dangerous thing, he’d said. Indifference is.

Sometimes in writing you have difficult periods and then other times it just flows.

Once you place that crown of liar on your head, you can take it off again, but it leaves a stain for all time.