“What civilization is, is 6 billion people trying to make themselves happy by standing on each other's shoulders and kicking each other's teeth in. It's not a pleasant situation.”

“There is no word for our kind of friendship. Two people who don'tsee each other a lot, but can make each other effortlessly happy”

“In God's scheme what is a few billion years here and there. Perhaps there have come and gone a dozen human civilizations in the past billion years that we know nothing about. And after this civilization we are living in destroys itself, it will all start up again in a million years when the planet has all its messes cleaned up. Then, finally, one of these civilizations, say five billion years from now, will last because people treat each other the way they ought to.”

“It's [marriage] about two people compromising, said Fee. It's about two people caring for each other and wanting to do as much as they can to make each other happy while still maintaining their own self-respect, which can sometimes get complicated . . . .”

“A community is the mental and spiritual condition of knowing that the place is shared, and that the people who share the place define and limit the possibilities of each other's lives. It is the knowledge that people have of each other, their concern for each other, their trust in each other, the freedom with which they come and go among themselves.”

“Two did not become one, but rather two came together—each one strong, healthy, and resilient, making the whole steadfast and true. They didn’t lose themselves in each other, but found themselves in each other instead.”