Though debts are condemned in the financial world, the world of friendship and love may perversely depend on well-managed debts.

The universe is large and we are tiny, without the need for further religious superstructure. One can have so-called spiritual moments without belief in the spirit.

It is this idea 'decency' should be attached to wealth -and 'indecency'' to poverty - that forms the core of one strand of skeptical complaint against the modern status-ideal. Why should failure to make money be taken as a sign of an unconditionally flawed human being rather than of a fiasco in one particular area if the far larger, more multifaceted, project of leading a good life? Why should both wealth and poverty be read as the predominant guides to an individual's morals ?

As victims of hurt, we frequently don't bring up what ails us, because so many wounds look absurd in the light of day.

We are sad at home and blame the weather and the ugliness of the buildings, but on the tropical island we learn that the state of the skies and the appearance of our dwellings can never on their own underwrite our joy nor condemn us to misery.

Being funny should be an incidental byproduct of trying to get to something truthful, not a destination in itself.

Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly.