Yes, there are plenty of heroes and heroines everywhere you look. They are not famous people. They are generally obscure and modest people doing useful work, keeping their families together and taking an active part in the health of their communities, opposing what is evil (in one way or another) and defending what is good. Heroes do not want power over others.

The world is what it is, no less and no more, and therein lies its entire and sufficient meaning.

There are two kinds of people I cannot abide: bigots and any well-organized ethnic group.

Original sin, the true original sin, is the blind destruction for the sake of greed of this natural paradise which lies all around us-if only we were worthy of it.

Apuleius married a rich widow, then wrote _The Golden Ass_.

There has never yet been a human society worthy of the name of civilization. Civilization remains a remote ideal.

The desert wears... a veil of mystery. Motionless and silent it evokes in us an elusive hint of something unknown, unknowable, about to be revealed. Since the desert does not act it seems to be waiting -- but waiting for what?