We are, all of us, crippled and twisted. Most of us strive desperately to keep our grotesqueries out of sight and mind. Our suffering is transformed by an alchemy of the soul into addiction, ulcers, strokes, hatred, even war.

But insight doesn't necessarily produce self-control. Sometimes you just see your destructiveness more clearly.

When people can do something simple to avoid conflict--say, hit a button or unlock a latch--they'll generally do it.

If you take the teachings of Jesus, whether you consider yourself saved or you don't, those teachings are pristine. They're wonderful guides for life. And there's nothing in them that says hurt other people.

...the horrific fact that our lives and those of the people we love are impermanent and exquisitely fragile, that any of us can cease to exist without warning, that loving anyone, anywhere, at any time, leaves you infinitely vulnerable at every single moment. (20)

Plenty of people who survive tragedies end up ambivalent about danger--frightened by it, yet strangely drawn to it.

Sometimes when you push someone, you find out who that person really is.

God is not attracted to mountaintops or church steeples. God is drawn to suffering, and the dark places it surfaces, which is why sharing pain freely feels very much like love, and may be the same thing. (207)

Most children would rather preserve the fantasy of a loving connection with their fathers and mothers, at all costs, even if it costs them their self-esteem. When you're three or seven years old, it's less frightening to think of yourself as an unlovable, disappointing screwup than to recognize the fact that you're living with a monster.

For a psychiatrist to be any good, he has to be willing to corner you, close off the easy exits, even when it hurts. It's supposed to. (46)

If you're going to have 19 children, you should supervise them well.

But that's the hardest part of healing.' What?' Realizing there's no one to hate.

Human empathy, while not found on any chart of human anatomy, is the reason we instinctively hurt for our children... it is the reason that one human being's intensely personal tests and triumphs can be harnessed to the good of countless others.

The good guys had to operate on a higher level than the killers--just for society to keep track of who was who.

The truth will set you free. Unless you're guilty.

I think men should be able to veto women's abortions if they're willing to care for the child after it's born.