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.

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

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.

I don’t need any plastic in my body to validate me as a woman.

Nothing spoils romance so much as a sense of humor in the woman

...they ain't never met nobody they didn't lie to and steal from.

Got enough leg room there, Rossiter?" Marc asked."You bet. If not I'll just make use of the overhead bin.

When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment results.

When you ask women what's the one thing they wish they had more of, they always say time.

After faith comes repentance, or, rather, repentance is faith's twin brother and is born at the same time.

Rashness is the faithful, but unhappy parent of misfortune.

Sometimes people try to give me advice going forward, and they say, "You know, you've just got to work to be more likeable in Washington." And I laugh and say, "You know this isn't rocket science.

Stop giving energy to the things you don't want.