If you are going to do something for the poor, the abused, or the imprisoned, above all be faithful. People with broken lives often come from lives with broken promises.

In sorting out my feelings and beliefs, there is, however, one piece of moral ground of which I am absolutely certain: if I were to be murdered I would not want my murderer executed. I would not want my death avenged. Especially by government--which can't be trusted to control its own bureaucrats or collect taxes equitably or fill a pothole, much less decide which of its citizens to kill.

Once you inject fear into a society of people, they become more and more afraid because they don't cross over the neighbourhoods and the only information they get about other people is through the media.

The important thing is that when your come to understand something you act on it, no matter how small that act is. Eventually it will take you where you need to go.

Lavish love on others receive it gratefully when it come to you. Cultivate friendship like a garden. It is the best love of all.

Time rushes by and yet time is frozen. Funny how we get so exact about time at the end of life and at its beginning. She died at 6:08 or 3:46, we say, or the baby was born at 4:02. But in between we slosh through huge swatches of time--weeks, months, years, decades even.

Remorse presupposes enough self-forgetfulness to feel the pain ofothers.