In the horrifying calculus of self-deception, the greater the pain we inflict on others, the greater the need to justify it to maintain our feelings of decency and self-worth.

Many books in popular psychology are a melange of the author's comments, a dollop of research, and stupefyingly dull transcriptions from interviews.

Severe initiations increase a member's liking for the group.

The difference between the Japanese and the American is summed up in their opposite reactions to the proverb (popular in both nations), "A rolling stone gathers no moss." Epidemiologist S. Leonard Syme observes that to the Japanese, moss is exquisite and valued; a stone is enhanced by moss; hence a person who keeps moving and changing never acquires the beauty and benefits of stability. To Americans, the proverb is an admonition to keep rolling, to keep from being covered with clinging attachments.

[Sexual] fantasies, like children, are most interesting to the people who have them.

The second-sweetest set of three words in English is 'I don't know.'

Depression is not 'anger turned inward'; if anything, anger is depression turned outward. Follow the trail of anger inward, and there you will find the small, still voice of pain.