Personally, I don't believe in anything more supernatural than what you read about in the Bible, and I only believe that one day out of seven.

Stupid people do stupid things, but people who are smart enough can do something really stupid.

For such people the consummate act of moral clarity was a lynching or a suicide bombing, a fatwa or a pogrom. And they were ascendant now, rising like dark stars over a terminal landscape .

Times like this, with the wind moving the grass and curling around her like a huge cool hand, Tess felt the world as a second presence, as another person, as if the wind and the grass had voices of their own and she could hear them talking.

Children wear their natures like brightly-colored clothes; that's why they lie so transparently. Adulthood is the art of deceit.

It was amazing how these events lost their impact, translated through the flat gaze of a video screen.

I understand so very little. But I am not afraid to look: I am a good observer at last. My eyes are open, and I am not afraid.