I ran rather than walked, anxious to lose my way. All I wanted was to be unsure.

Only now do I understand the war against boredom, the lost cause of empty hours, of empty days and nights.

She said, "Do you have more things that you need, or more that you don't need?" I said, "It depends on what it means to need.

Why does watching a dog be a dog fill one with happiness?

The disgraced Usurer Yankel D took the baby girl home that evening... He made a bed of crumpled newspaper in a deep baking pan and gently tucked it in the oven, so that she wouldn't be disturbed by the noise of the small falls outside... When he pulled her out to feed her or just hold her, her body was tattooed with the newsprint... Sometimes he would rock her to sleep in his arms, and read her left to right, and know everything he needed to know about the world. If it wasn't written on her, it wasn't important to him.

Just to be a functioning adult in the world, we develop all of these layers of protection. When we see homeless people, we don't cry, even though homeless people probably deserve our tears - you know, it's a horrible thing.

We've made science experiments of ourselves and our children.