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

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.

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.

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

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.

Tell your friend that in his death, a part of you dies and goes with him. Wherever he goes, you also go. He will not be alone.

A book is a suicide postponed.

Morale was deteriorating and it was all Yossarian's fault. The country was in peril

If I’m not showing grace . . . have I forgotten the grace I’ve been shown?

Only World War II, which mobilized 10 million draftees, could by any stretch of the imagination be called a people's war.

Lobbyist influence comes from access, not money.

It's been amazing how this crazy career has been created. I feel that it's been given to me. I wouldn't be anywhere without Victoria's Secret.

Engineering and mixing are absolutely key. Once a song is done, for me personally, it's usually two or three days to get the mix down.

I'll develop my own image. I'm an original man. A one and only. I just need some help.