We don't seek the painful experiences that hew our identities, but we seek our identities in the wake of painful experiences.

That, in essence, is the catastrophe of suicide for those who survive: not only the loss of someone, but the loss of the chance to persuade that person to act differently, the loss of the chance to connect.

I think morality is more important than ever before. As we gain more power, the question of what we do with it becomes more and more crucial, and we are very close to really having divine powers of creation and destruction. The future of the entire ecological system and the future of the whole of life is really now in our hands. And what to do with it is an ethical question and also a scientific question.

Identity itself should be not a smug label or a gold medal but a revolution.

I have a very difficult time believing that there is some being who is going to invite me into heaven or not on the basis of whether I wear a yarmulke or whether I have been sprinkled with water while someone said something. Some of the ritual is very beautiful, but I find it difficult to believe that it really has to do with God. I believe that dogma comes from man.

And I found out about the wonderful world of sign language. I suddenly realized: If we as a society recognize Jewish culture, gay culture and Latino culture, we must recognize that this is a coherent culture, too. I think deafness is a disability for social constructionist reasons.

I have found that the greatest stories of acceptance and love and the ugliest stories of hideous cruelty and abuse have equally been perpetrated in the name of Christian faith.