Laws had a bad habit of being ignored or abrogated when societal push came to totalitarian shove.

She had always felt that the essence of human experience lay not primarily in the peak experiences, the wedding days and triumphs which stood out in the memory like dates circled in red on old calendars, but, rather, in the unself-conscious flow of little things - the weekend afternoon with each member of the family engaged in his or her own pursuit, their crossings and connections casual, dialogues imminently forgettable, but the sum of such hours creating a synergy which was important and eternal.

I loved almost everything about being a teacher, but I was an unusual teacher

As for the depiction of the Catholic church, it's not meant to be a prediction

The past is dead and buried. But I know now that buried things have a way of rising to the surface when one least expects them to.

Context is to data what water is to a dolphin

Human beings have only that confusing mass of chemically driven neurological storage to rely on. They're all subjective and emotion-tinged. How can they trust any of their memories?