“To want to understand is an attempt to recapture something we have lost.”

“If we want to change something, we must begin with understanding. But if we want to love something, we must begin with acceptance.”

“You talk here about greatness. I just wanted to ask if you could understand what it was we were going for. That there is greatness in the attempt - something in the trying. That in trying, we set up a certain scaffolding that a new generation can use to climb to heights we only dreamed of.”

“No, it is not only our fate but our business to lose innocence, and once we have lost that it is futile to attempt a picnic in Eden.”

“We cannot understand without wanting to understand, that is, without wanting to let something be said...Understanding does not occur when we try to intercept what someone wants to say to us by claiming we already know it.”

“We have to start doing this in ignorance of the details of how to do it. We have to learn how to do it in the attempt itself. It is something we are going to have to imagine.”