High kitsch, whatever else may be said of it, cannot be openly dismissed as cheap.

The brain can be seen as a complex machine, like a gooey computer.

Thus when I have to summarize naturalized spirituality in a single phrase, it is this: the thoughtful love of life.

Trust is a skill learned over time so that, like a well-trained athlete, one makes the right moves, usually without much reflection.

Chances are the movements of the euro as against the dollar will be relatively moderate.

True, trust necessarily carries with it uncertainties, but we must force ourselves to think about these uncertainties as possibilities and opportunities, not as liabilities.

High-class kitsch may well be "perfect" in its form and and composition: the academic painters were often masters of their craft. Thus, the accusation that a work of kitsch is based not on lack of for or aesthetic merit but on the presence of a particularly provocative emotional content. (The best art, by contrast, eschews emotional content altogether.)