“History teaches us many things. Most importantly, the things that made us who and what we are.”

“If we listen and observe carefully the dying can teach us important things that we need to learn in preparing for the end of our own life's journey.”

“Without realizing it, we fill important places in each other’s lives. It’s that way with the guy at the corner grocery, the mechanic at the local garage, the family doctor, teachers, neighbors, coworkers. Good people who are always “there,” who can be relied upon in small, important ways. People who teach us, bless us, encourage us, support us, uplift us in the dailiness of life. We never tell them. I don’t know why, but we don’t.And, of course, we fill that role ourselves. There are those who depend in us, watch us, learn from us, take from us. And we never know.You may never have proof of your importance, but you are more important than you think. There are always those who couldn’t do without you. The rub is that you don’t always know who.”

“In a life, in any life, bad things happen. Many good things happen, of course, we know what they are-joy, tenderness, success beauty-but some bad things happen as well. Sometimes, very bad things happen. Children sicken and die. People we love don't love us, can never love us.”

“And what is written well and what is written badly...need we ask Lysias or any other poet or orator who ever wrote or will write either a political or other work, in meter or out of meter, poet or prose writer, to teach us this?" What is good, PhÊdrus, and what is not good...need we ask anyone to tell us these things?”

“You're always believing ahead of your evidence. What was the evidence I could write a poem? I just believed it. The most creative thing in us is to believe in a thing.”

“We are the better because of a constitution that goes beyond the spirit of the men who wrote it. Most often, in contrast, Christianity is restrictive, overly concerned about the “original intent” of its authors. But the Constitution contains the germ of an idea that allows expansion, going beyond what its founders thought. That is humanism. Humanism affirms, “There is something good even holy in the human spirit.” However we define humanism, whatever we say about it, the important thing is that it makes us better.”