I've never bought into any sort of hard and fast, this-box/that-box characterization. People are individuals. Yes, they may be expected to be a particular way. But that doesn't mean they're going to be that way.

... Remember that forgiveness too is a power. To beg for it is a power, and to withold or bestow it is a power, perhaps the greatest.

Storytelling is a very old human skill that gives us an evolutionary advantage. If you can tell young people how you kill an emu, acted out in song or dance, or that Uncle George was eaten by a croc over there, don't go there to swim, then those young people don't have to find out by trial and error.

A fist is more than the sum of its fingers.

Perhaps I write for no one. Perhaps for the same person children are writing for when they scrawl their names in the snow.

...we must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing.

What a lost person needs is a map of the territory, with his own position marked on it so he can see where he is in relation to everything else.