“The greatest conflicts are not between two people but between one person and himself.”

“Genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong. They are conflicts between two rights”

“Love is two smiles shared between two people. Or two smiles and a smirk, shared between one couple and a jerk. Or maybe three smiles and a frown, shared between two parents, their child, and a clown.”

“But nothing is said of the closeness between two people: how they grew in the shade of each other's presence. No one speaks of that exchange of gift and character --- the way a person took on and recognized in himself the smile of a lover. Individuals are seen only in the context of these swirling social tides.”

“I love America and I hate it. I'm torn between the two. I have two conflicting visions of America. One is a kind of dream landscape and the other is a kind of black comedy.”

“People talk about beautiful relationships between two persons of the same sex. What is the best of that sort as compared with the friendship of man and wife where the best impulses and highest ideals of both are the same? There is no place for comparison between the two friendships; the one is earthly, the other divine.”