The closing of a door can bring blessed privacy and comfort - the opening, terror. Conversely, the closing of a door can be a sad and final thing - the opening a wonderfully joyous moment.

I just wish this social institution [religion] wasnt based on what appears to me to be a monumental hoax built on an accumulation of customs and myths directed toward proving something that isnt true.

Person-to-person, most people are honest.

Teachers who have plugged away at their jobs for twenty, thirty, and forty years are heroes. I suspect they know in their hearts they've done a good thing, too, and are more satisfied with themselves than most people are. Most of us end up with no more than five or six people who remember us. Teachers have thousands of people who remember them for the rest of their lives.

Familiar things are a comfort to us all.

I've learned... That I can always pray for someone when I don't have the strength to help him in some other way.

Half the cookbooks tell you how to cook the food and the other half tell you how to avoid eating it.