“As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naive and simple-hearted than we supposed. And we ourselves are, too.”

“In most cases, people, even wicked people, are far more naive and simple-hearted than one generally assumes. And so are we.”

“But suppose we are nothing more than the sum of our first, naive, random behaviors. What then?”

“Nothing in life is more remarkable than the unnecessary anxiety which we endure, and generally create ourselves.”

“More to the point, I know why soldiers, home from war, seldom tell their families about their exploits in more than general terms. We who survive must go on in the names of those who fall, but if we dwell too much on the vivid details of what we've witnessed of man's inhumanity to man, we simply can't go on. perseverance is impossible if we don't permit ourselves to hope.”

“I didn't know I had it in me. There's more to all of us than we realize. Life is so much bigger, grander, higher, and wider than we allow ourselves to think. We're capable of so much more than we allow ourselves to believe.”