I don't understand what the nature of God is. But I do have the feeling that I'm at some feet, and lucky to be there.

I think it's up to the parents to determine whether what they're doing is consigning their child to difficulty. It's not as though they were crippling their children after they were born.

Any community that remains an abstraction is an easy target for prejudice and cruelty, but any community that becomes fully humanized is much harder to treat in that way.

People who believe that they are going to be excommunicated and shamed, or whatever other dark things may happen to them, are much less likely to enter open, loving relationships. And they are also much less likely to have the self-esteem that is required to be monogamous and loving. And in consequence, they are much less likely to create families.

It is important not to suppress your feelings altogether when you are depressed. It is equally important to avoid terrible arguments or expressions of outrage. You should steer clear of emotionally damaging behavior. People forgive, but it is best not to stir things up to the point at which forgiveness is required. When you are depressed, you need the love of other people, and yet depression fosters actions that destroy that love. Depressed people often stick pins into their own life rafts. The conscious mind can intervene. One is not helpless.

The strengthening of faith, I think, is the ultimate goal of organized religion altogether.

I think a lot of the time people assume that their values are universal. And they don't understand which aspects of their values are actually universal and which aspects are very specific.