“Kitsch is much more than a question of style; it's a preference for consolation over truth. Disney's version of reality is not just cleaned up, it's pernicious. Unlike the best forms of art and philosophy, it undercuts the possibility of transformation because it portrays a world that's just fine as it is--or as it will be by the time the credits come up.”

“Unlike kitsch, moral clarity is hard to come by. It means working to make sense of things you do not even want to acknowledge. It often means not knowing if you ever get it right.”

“What the Enlightenment rejected in the South Sea islands was what it perceived as a stupor, the docile submission to whatever bit of the given is coming your way. And what's coming your way is unlikely to be a breeze or a cow or a coconut, but a new kind of screen you can zap or click to create the illusion that life isn't passing you by.”

“Vitality is not the denial of mortality, but the grown-up way of facing it.”

“Home is the normal--whatever place you happen to start from and return to without having to answer questions. It's a metaphor that may seem to fit reduced expectations. We no longer seek towers that would reach to the heavens; we've abandoned attempts to prove that we live in a chain of being whose every link bears witness to the glory of God. We merely seek assurance that we find ourselves in a place where we know our way about.”

“Ordinary goodness is fraught with veins of vanity and self-interest and above all with pleasure--because goodness makes you feel more alive.”

“Dogma--ideas uninformed by experience--is a form of ingratitude.”