If you do believe in God, and your first instinct in all things must be gratitude: for creation, or love, for mercy.

Aristotle deemed courage to be the first virtue, because it makes all the other possible.

Believe it or not, philosophy has consequences.

Since the late 1970s, 163 million female babies have been aborted by parents seeking sons.

No single virtue is, on its own, necessarily virtuous.

To raise a child is to submit to a staggering amount of work, much of which is deeply unpleasant. It would be crazy to have children if they weren't so damned important.

Justice is the virtue we 'd rather have done unto others than practiced on ourselves.

Virtues are the internal qualities that allow us to be our best selves and enable us to lead complete and fulfilling lives.

One of the mitigating benefits of children is that they make a Lego habit more respectable.

Anyone can dig a ditch. There's no way to dig smarter. Or dig faster. Having a baby is like being assigned to dig a ditch. That goes all the way to the horizon.

Someone's got to do some more research, but I would really like to know: when a CBT therapist really gets distressed, who does he go see?

All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

There is no suffering like a child's, terrified by a secret which it dare not for some reason disclose.

With music, you often don't have to translate it. It just affects you, and you don't know why.

Exaggerated passion combined with enthusiasm has the ingredients to make a prolific artist.

There can be no public or private virtue unless the foundation of action is the practice of truth.

Steve is very quiet, even shy. I am very gregarious. So, opposites.

Even trained for years as they all had been in precision of language, what words could you use which would give another the experience of sunshine?

I'd much rather do an obviously commercial writing project than get a day job.