Men, unlike mockingbirds, have the capacity for systematic self-delusion. We echo each other with equal precision, equal eloquence, equal assurance.

We are born of risen apes, not fallen angels.

What truly leads the evolutionary procession, in other words, is behavior.

Sex is a sideshow in the world of the animal, for the dominant color of that world is fear.

Human war has been the most successful of our cultural traditions.

The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses.

For the soundest of evolutionary reasons man appears at his best when times are worst.