“Mars tugs at the human imagination like no other planet. With a force mightier than gravity, it attracts the eye to the shimmering red presence in the clear night sky...”

“Genetically, 99.9% of the makeup of all human beings is identical, but we spend most of our time focusing on our differences. It may now be time for us to focus on what binds us together, such as our shared concerns.”

“As the taste for what may be called book-learning increases, manual labor should not be neglected. The education of the mind and the education of the body should go hand in hand. A skillful brain should be joined with a skillful hand. Manual labor should be dignified among us and always be made honorable. The tendency, which is too common in these days, for young men to get a smattering of education and then think themselves unsuited for mechanical or other laborious pursuits is one that should not be allowed to grow among us....Every one should make it a matter of pride to be a producer, and not a consumer alone. Our children should be taught to sustain themselves by their own industry and skill, and not only do this, but to help sustain others, and that to do this by honest toil is one of the most honorable means which God has furnished to His children here on earth. The subject of the proper education of the youth of Zion is one of the greatest importance.”

“… Looking at her, I think I know better what romantic love is.”… she asked, “What is it?”“It is parental love,” he answered thoughtfully. “Wanting to protect and keep the other person safe. As well as the love of friendship - esteeming the other person, even desiring each other’s company beyond all others. And it is lust,” he said, meeting her eyes, and was rewarded with seeing them darken, her breath becoming slightly unsteady, one little word jerking her out of her clinical assessment. He smiled, a predatory, seductive grin. “The physical needing of the other person, the quickened pulse, the sweaty heat.” His hand, which still rested on hers, began slowly moving, his fingers dancing over her skin. “Combining them makes the result greater than its individual parts. Because it produces something else. It creates … a steadiness. A strength. I can’t explain it well - being only an outside observer - but I only know that out of my friends' relationships, my sister‘s marriage is the epitome of grace.”

“I can't believe you came all this way, No one ever did anything like that for me before.' His eyes bored into her. 'No one ever loved you the way i love you, Susie.”

“As I researched the history of the heroine it became painfully clear to me that women have had little hand in creating our own heroic myths. Indeed, as Sarah Pomeroy has shown, "[t]he mythology about women is created by men and, in a culture dominated by men, it may have little to do with flesh-and-blood women." And it became equally clear that we will be enclosed by the boundaries of this mythology's limited vision until we begin to create our own.”

“she loved to stand in the middle of a market square, or a park, or a beach and take in the smells and the sounds of a world that was completely new to her. she loved being an anonymous extra in a crowd scene, like some real-life where's waldo - a tiny face, wide-eyed with wonder, in a vast, ever-changing picture. ”