For this world that men have made, none of us is bad enough. For the world that made us, none is good enough.

What is the purpose of the giant sequoia tree? The purpose of the giant sequoia tree is to provide shade for the tiny titmouse.

A mother's sorrow is more true, honorable, and beautiful than the detachment of the sage.

By the age of eighteen, a human has acquired enough joy and heartache to provide the food of reflection for a century.

Beware the writer who always encloses the word *reality* in quotation marks: He's trying to slip something over on you. Or into you.

The function of football, soccer, basketball and other passion-sports in modern industrial society is the transference of boredom, frustration, anger and rage into socially acceptable forms of combat. A temporary substitute for war; for nationalism; identification with something bigger than the self.

Civilization, like an airplane in flight, survives only as it keeps going forward.