“A lot of people have opinions, but I don't think they ever ask themselves why their opinions are what they are.”

“I've always sort of wondered: If everyone else's opinion is what matters, then do you ever really have one of your own?”

“No one ever asks a kid for her opinion, but it seems to me that growing up means you stop hoping for the best, and start expecting the worst.”

“In my opinion, the very fact that Mark doesn't know this diagnostic criterion suggests that he's a lot closer to actual retardation than I am.”

“I write because it’s a way of puzzling out answers to situations in the world that I don’t understand. The act of writing a book gives me the same experience that I hope reading it gives readers. It forces me to sort through the various points of view on a given issue or situation and ultimately come to a conclusion. Doing that might not change my mind, but it almost always gives me a stronger sense of why my opinion is what it is—a question we rarely ask ourselves.”

“People have to experience things that terrify them. If they don't, how will they ever come to appreciate safety?”

“You know why I think we still execute people? Because, even if we don't want to say it out loud-for the really heinous crimes, we want to know that there's a really heinous punishment. Simple as that. We want to bring society closer together-huddle and circle our wagons-and that means getting rid of people we think are incapable of learning a moral lesson. I guess the question is: Who gets to identify those people? And what if, God forbid, they got it wrong?”