“Even for those to whom life and death are equal jests. There are some things that are still held in respect.”

“Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made.”

“Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.”

“Respect only has meaning as respect for those with whom I do not agree.”

“Just when normal life felt almost possible - when the world held some kind of order, meaning, even loveliness (the prismatic spray of light through an icicle; the stillness of a sunrise), some small thing would go awry and the veil of optimism was torn away, the barren world revealed. They learned, somehow, to wait those times out. There was no cure, no answer, no reparation.”

“If there is some divine plan that requires my survival and the deaths of all those children in day care, I respectfully decline to participate.”