Today we recognize that the emotion of disgust evolved as an unconscious defense against biological contamination.

It Begins with skepticism. The history of human folly, and our own susceptibility to illusions and fallacies, tell us that men and women are fallible.

Since violence is largely a male pastime, cultures that empower women tend to move away from the glorification of violence and are less likely to breed dangerous subcultures of rootless young men.

The psychological components of war have not gone away—dominance, vengeance, callousness, tribalism, groupthink, self-deception

Knights do protect ladies, but only to keep them from being abducted by other knights.

So holding many factors constant, we find that living in a civilization reduces one’s chances of being a victim of violence fivefold.

A sense of solidarity among fifteen-to-thirty-year-olds would be a menace to civilized society even in the best of times.

The one great universal in the study of violence is that most of it is committed by fifteen-to-thirty-year-old men.

The essence of a culture of honor is that it does not sanction predatory or instrumental violence, but only retaliation after an insult or other mistreatment.

Religious people today, compartmentalize their attitude to the Bible. They pay it lip service as a symbol of morality while getting their actual morality from more modern principles.

Organisms are selected to deploy violence only in circumstances where the expected benefits outweigh the expected costs.

As far as I am concerned, philosophic questioning is just as likely to make you confused and depressed as it is to improve your condition.

I embrace new experiences every day. I revel in the fun adventures I create for myself and absorb their blissful gifts.

The music that I've made in the past has had strong contemporary country roots, but I think moving on in music, I will branch out from that a bit.

Fractals, the theory of relativity, the genome: these are magnificently beautiful constructs.

I had this thing about hanging out in dark theaters. My family thought I grew out of a rock.

[Christ] does not give [men] light but from moment to moment; the instant He withdraws, all is darkness.... God does not give them a stock of holiness.

I should have said, 'Follow your blisters.'

I didn't know at the time I was writing Because of Winn-Dixie where the story came from, but in retrospect I can see that it was a response to a terribly harsh winter here in Minnesota.

Fantasy flows in where fact leaves a vacuum.

Writing isn't something I do, writing is something that I am. I am writing - it's just an expression of me.