Young Americans are dropping out of religion at an alarming rate of five to six times the historic rate.

What really matters from the point of view of social capital and civic engagement is not merely nominal membership, but active and involved membership.

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 would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.

You shouldn't throw stones if you live in a glass house and if you got a glass jaw, you should watch yo mouth: cause I'll break yo face.

Although unanswered prayer is indeed a theme of the book, it is not the heart of the book, for unanswered prayer describes a problem but offers no solutions.

To die old with a young mind is such a tragedy. Naiveness was never a blessing.

I never set out to do a sketch show.

I'm just melancholy by nature, and a lot of that gets into my writing.

I might just write a novel next. I don't know!

Your arm is unvanquished, but not invincible.

In college, my friend Melanie and I used to have weekly Jimmy Stewart viewings, and 'Harvey' seemed to make its way into the rotation an inordinate amount of times.

No man is above the law.