When people can do something simple to avoid conflict--say, hit a button or unlock a latch--they'll generally do it.

What was it about not knowing a person that allowed you to wonder whether she might be the answer to all your problems?

The roots of any evil deed can be traced to the perpetrator's refusal to experience pain.

We are, all of us, crippled and twisted. Most of us strive desperately to keep our grotesqueries out of sight and mind. Our suffering is transformed by an alchemy of the soul into addiction, ulcers, strokes, hatred, even war.

Most children would rather preserve the fantasy of a loving connection with their fathers and mothers, at all costs, even if it costs them their self-esteem. When you're three or seven years old, it's less frightening to think of yourself as an unlovable, disappointing screwup than to recognize the fact that you're living with a monster.

But insight doesn't necessarily produce self-control. Sometimes you just see your destructiveness more clearly.

Most of you guys can't see the potential in a nervous breakdown. A real collapse. There's more chance of finding yourself in a major depression than there is in a bottle Prozac.