Stories turn anonymous strangers into people who matter.

Families survive the terrible twos because toddlers aren't strong enough to kill with their hands and aren't capable of using lethal weapons.

Philosophers have often looked for the defining feature of humans — language, rationality, culture, and so on. I'd stick with this: Man is the only animal that likes Tabasco sauce.

Our best hope for the future [...] lies in an appreciation of the fact that, even if we don’t empathize with distant strangers, their lives have the same value as the lives of those we love.

A religion such as Judaism or Catholicism might survive even if it comes to reject a literal account of God creating man and animals. But it cannot survive the rejection of an immaterial soul.

I argue that we should be kind, we should be compassionate, and we should definitely be reasonable and rational, but that empathy leads us astray.

The fact that something can be used for good isn't necessarily a knockdown argument for it.

Empathy zooms you in on an individual and, as a result, it's narrow, it's innumerate, it's racist, it's very biased.

The effects of Twitter and Facebook and all those things on people's psychologies is a really interesting question to which nobody knows the answer.

I love teaching. I wouldn't take a job that didn't include it.

What I mean by "empathy" is putting yourself in other people's shoes, feeling what they feel.

One of the most remarkable contributions of humans to the world is our capacity for ideas.

From a relationship perspective, givers build deeper and broader connections.

The biggest labor problem is tomorrow.

There are people in the world who have the power to change our values.

People don't talk to me on airplanes.

We have to change this idea that women are only supposed to work in the house... Women should go out and be what they want

What did a person need to survive? Food. Water. Shelter. Warmth in cold weather. And something else... books.

A celebrated people lose dignity upon a closer view.

The Maigret stories are all very different in terms of the content and the way that the stories are told. They're not what I would call formulaic.

Were I to commence my administration again, the first question I would ask respecting a candidate would be, Does he use ardent spirits?