“All good people agree, And all good people say,All nice people, like Us, are We And every one else is They:But if you cross over the sea, Instead of over the way,You may end by (think of it!) looking on We As only a sort of They!”

“Each of us may think we know exactly what we need to make us happy, what will be good for us, what will ensure we have our happy ending, but life rarely works out in the way we expect, and our happy ending may have all sorts of unexpected twists and turns, be shaped in all sorts of unexpected ways”

“They haven't killed us yet," I say, and I imagine that one day I will fly a plane over Portland, over Rochester, over every fenced-in city in the whole country, and I will bomb and bomb and bomb, and watch all their buildings smoldering to dust, and all those people melting and bleeding into flame, and I will see how they like it. If you take, we will take back. Steal from us, and we will rob you blind. When you squeeze, we will hit. This is the way the world is made now.”

“It is not enough to be nice; you have to be good. We are attracted by nice people; but only on the assumption that their niceness is a sign of goodness.”

“...why do we make it all seem like a crisis, over and over again? Why do we worry it all to death, like dogs with socks or chew-toys? 'Look at it this way...In a hundred years? - All new people.”

“I think all of us ordinary mortals tend to mythologize people as good-looking as you.”