Her mind traveled crooked streets and aimless goat paths, arriving sometimes at profundity, other times at the revelations of a three-year-old. Throughout this fresh, if common, pursuit of knowledge, one conviction crowned her efforts: ...she knew there was nothing to fear.

We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.

...when the little boy discovered, at four, the same thing Mr. Smith had learned earlier -- that only birds and planes could fly -- he lost all interest in himself.

Definitions belong to the definer, not the defined.

Freedom is choosing your responsibility. It's not having no responsibilitie s; it's choosing the ones you want.

Shallow believers prefer a shallow God.

Now what? All the battles feminists won about not being a sex object, not being evaluated based on these things, that now other generations are wallowing in, the extremes they go to, to look sexually attractive? It's stunning how things that one fought desperately for are just being tossed aside with aplomb.