I don't think you can come into your wisdom until you have made mistakes on your own skin and felt them in reality of your own life.

The idea that a prisoner would confess to a complete stranger that he had committed a crime - I just didn't buy that.

Just having walked into a prison environment, sat there for two hours, the effect that it had on me. ... I couldn't imagine the effect it would have on a person 24 hours a day. So then I became more intrigued, and we began a correspondence, and I began visiting [Todd Willingham].

It is completely acceptable to be tired because it means you're working hard. But it's not acceptable to be stressed because that means things are going wrong or your head is broken.

In 1954, Pope Pius XI, of all people, sent some Vatican delegates on a trip to Libya with these written instructions: "Do NOT think that you are going among Infidels. Muslims attain salvation, too. The ways of Providence are infinite.

Given that life is so short, do I really want to spend one-ninetieth of my remaining days on earth reading Edward Gibbon?

Most of us, even if only for two minutes in our lives, have experienced at some time or another an inexplicable and random sense of complete bliss, unrelated to anything that was happening in the outside world.