When I was writing 'The Abstinence Teacher,' I really tried to immerse myself in contemporary American evangelical culture.

He sat watching what went forward with the quiet outward glance of healthy old age.

George Eliot

Eminence without merit earns deference without esteem.

Sebastian Roch Nicolas Chamfort

The mind ought sometimes to be diverted, that it may return the better to thinking.

Phaedrus

There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.

Ernest Hemingway

If the past cannot teach the present and the father cannot teach the son, then history need not have bothered to go on, and the world has wasted a great deal of time.

Russell Hoban

There are four types of men in this world: 1. The man who knows, and knows that he knows; he is wise, so consult him. 2. The man who knows, but doesn't know that he knows; help him not forget what he knows. 3. The man who knows not, and knows that he knows not; teach him. 4. Finally, there is the man who knows not but pretends that he knows; he is a fool, so avoid him.

Ibn Gabirol

The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

There is too much at stake for us to surrender to the politics of polarization.

Brad Henry

The sky is falling. The sun is rising.

Steven Wright

A king asked a holy man, Do you remember about me? The holy man answered, Yes, I think about you when I forget about God.

Leo Tolstoy

Well, you got to remember, bin Laden killed 3,000 Americans and, in some ways, he and his ideology killed tens of thousands of his fellow Muslims, including Pakistanis. I understand that that was provocative and complicated for Pakistan, but only if you accept the idea that he was an acceptable member of Pakistani society.

Sebastian Junger

The purpose of all wars, is peace.

Saint Augustine