Deep down, beneath all our insecurities, beneath all our hopes for and beliefs in equality, each of us believes we're better than anyone else. Because it's our beliefs that are right, our doubts that are allowable ones, our fears which are legitimate

There are people we wonder about but don't make attempts to contact. Perhaps we're afraid of empty conversations with someone or perhaps we're curious about someone whose life we watched for awhile from afar. Sometimes it's just been too long and sometimes we can't even articulate the need to know whatever happened to them. Where are they? Did they make it? Are they happy? Are they passionate about something in their lives? Are they anything like the people we once knew?

the best relationships--friendship and otherwise--tend to be those where you *can* say anything to the other person but you don't say *everything*.

Was he attractive? She was too attracted to tell.

What we want is a system which, while tolerating all religious beliefs, places them on a footing of perfect equality.

They were so strong in their beliefs that there came a time when it hardly mattered what exactly those beliefs were; they all fused into a single stubbornness