People may go to the library looking mainly for information, but they find each other there.

What really matters from the point of view of social capital and civic engagement is not merely nominal membership, but active and involved membership.

Look, we ought to do this for our kids... We ought to have a high school so that every kid who grows up here - they're all our kids - gets a good high school education.

Busy people tend to forgo the one activity - TV watching _ that is most lethal to community involvement

Social capital may turn out to be a prerequisite for, rather than a consequence of, effective computer-mediated communication.

Young Americans are dropping out of religion at an alarming rate of five to six times the historic rate.

A society that relies on generalized reciprocity is more efficient than a distrustful society, for the same reason that money is more efficient than barter. Trust lubricates social life. Networks of civic engagement also facilitate coordination and communication and amplify information about the trustworthiness of other individuals.