“Youths as children will see no wrong but feel it, as juveniles youths will see and feel wrongs and cope anyway they can, as adults spend a life time trying to forget the cruelties and memories of those wrongs they once knew.”

“There's nothing wrong with a youthful prospective. Don't forget- no one else sees the world the way you do, so no one else can tell the stories you have to tell.”

“You really are pretty stupid sometimes, you know that? I think you must be more man than demon.” With that, she stormed off. Sam sat where he was, feeling bewildered. “Did I say something wrong?”

“In forming a judgment, lay your hearts void of foretoken opinions; else, whatsoever is done or said will be measured by a wrong rule; like them who have the jaundice, to whom everything appears yellow.”

“We typically misunderstand what's wrong about consumerism. It's not that it makes us love material things too much. To be a good consumer, you have to desire to get lots of things, but you must not love any of them too much once you have them. Consumerism needs children who do not stay attached to their toys for very long and learn to expect the next round of presents as soon as possible. When consumerism succeeds, our attachments are shallow, easily broken, so we can move on to the next thing we're supposed to get. Being a good consumer means desiring new things, not cherishing old ones. And the new things you're supposed to desire are not always material things. Spirituality is now a consumerist enterprise, too.”

“A virtue is a habit that includes all of these things: actions (you take care of your child even when you don't feel like it), emotions (you are often overtaken by feelings of tenderness and delight), perceptions (you understand your little children better than they understand themselves), choices (you choose to get out of bed and go to the children's room even when you'd much rather not), and thoughts (you think differently, more thoroughly and carefully, about your children than about anyone else in the world). The habit of love includes all these things, but not necessarily all at the same time.”

“What we see of the world is the mind'sInvention and the mindThough stained by it, becomingRivers, sun, mule-dung, flies-Can instantly shiftA dirty bird in square time”