To the dumb question, 'Why me?' the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply, 'Why not?'

To what faults do you feel most indulgent? To the ones that arise from urgent material needs.

Most of the utopian community ideas actually are religious. They're based more on the idea of the monastery than the commune.

I'm here as a product of process of evolution, which doesn't make very many exceptions. And which rates life relatively cheaply.

Unlike other countries, it was founded on written proclamations. America is an ideal as well as a republic. Its documents are open to revisions. They're works in progress. There's an invitation to participate.

You should be nicer to him,' a schoolmate had once said to me of some awfully ill-favored boy. 'He has no friends.' This, I realized with a pang of pity that I can still remember, was only true as long as everybody agreed to it.

[I]f you think that American imperialism and its globalised, capitalist form is the most dangerous thing in the world, that means you don't think the Islamic Republic of Iran or North Korea or the Taliban is as bad.