“So we couldn't mingle with them, but we could eavesdrop. We got our knowledge that way--we caught it like germs.”

“If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't.”

“We all start out so damn sure, thinking we've got the world on a string. If we ever stopped to think about the infinite number of ways we could be undone, we'd never leave our bedrooms.”

“The metaphor is so obvious. Easter Island isolated in the Pacific Ocean — once the island got into trouble, there was no way they could get free. There was no other people from whom they could get help. In the same way that we on Planet Earth, if we ruin our own [world], we won't be able to get help.”

“We had yet to learn that the Devil created youth so that we could make our mistakes, and that God established maturity and old age so that we could pay for them...”

“In the way we regard our children, our spouses, neighbors, colleagues, and strangers, we choose to see others either as people like ourselves or as objects.They either count like we do or they don't. In the former case we regard them as we regard ourselves, we say our hearts are at peace toward them. In the latter case, since we systematically view them as inferior, we say our hearts are at war.”