"Individually the poor are not too tempting to thieves, for obvious reasons. Mug a banker and you might score a wallet containing a month's rent. Mug a janitor and you will be lucky to get away with bus fare to flee the crime scene."

"At best the family teaches the finest things human beings can learn from one another generosity and love. But it is also, all too often, where we learn nasty things like hate, rage and shame."

"For a long time on Earth humans didn't worship good gods; that's a new idea. The ancient Greek gods, the Hindu gods, are fairly amoral, most of them. We get stuck when we insist that God be both good and all-powerful."

"Well I do think there are people who are habitually negative and depressed and take the opposite approach because they imagine the worst, and their minds become dominated by that. They let their own emotions and expectations transform their perceptions of the world."

"It is a steadfast truth that to know when to speak and when to listen is the hallmark of genuine discernment — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"It is a subtle truth that true knowledge is found not in possessing answers, but in continually asking the right questions."

"Never go out to meet trouble. If you just sit still, nine cases out of ten, someone will intercept it before it reaches you."

"Well married a person has wings, poorly married shackles."