The world is a bad place. There are many wonderful people, but on the whole, humanity basically stinks.

The whole American experiment has been predicated on giving individuals as much control over their own lives as possible.

The human species produces a certain percentage of scum. That is the way in which I have understood the world my whole life

Although images of perfection in people's personal lives can cause unhappiness, images of perfect societies - utopian images - can cause monstrous evil. In fact, forcefully changing society to conform to societal images was the greatest cause of evil in the twentieth century.

More harm was done in the 20th century by faceless bureaucrats than tyrant dictators.

Society may no longer define marriage in the only way marriage has ever been defined in the annals of recorded history. Many societies allowed polygamy, many allowed child marriages, some allowed marriage within families; but none, in thousands of years, defined marriage as the union of people of the same sex.

Want to raise children who will be happy adults? Teach them not to whine.