“It was the truth, and like any truth, it was powerful.”

“While Owen and Miles talk sports, I people watch. And this is what I see: teenagers trying to act like adults. Or how they think adults act. But mostly they look ridiculous, and I wonder what they don’t want to do something that’s more fun than drinking, smoking, flirting, and making out. Why are those activities considered to be fun?”

“Let us dedicate this new era to mothers around the world, and also to the mother of all mothers — Mother Earth. It is up to us to keep building bridges to bring the world closer together, and not destroy them to divide us further apart. We can pave new roads towards peace simply by understanding other cultures. This can be achieved through traveling, learning other languages, and interacting with others from outside our borders. Only then will one truly discover how we are more alike than different. Never allow language or cultural traditions to come between brothers and sisters. The same way one brother may not like his sister’s choice of fashion or hairstyle, he will never hate her for her personal style or music preference. If you judge a man, judge only his heart. And if you should do so, make sure you use the truth in your conscience when weighing one’s character. Do not measure anybody strictly based on the bad you see in them and ignore all the good.”

“Like it or not, there are people who are capable to love genuinely and kill brutally. The amazing thing about that, few of those could even sleep well like babies in the night.”

“They say that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings steal a little and they throw you in jail. Steal a lot and then they make you king.”

“There is nothing more ancient than the truth.”

“truth is that which makes a people certain, clear, and strong.”

“Some years ago, there was a lovely philosopher of science and journalist in Italy named Giulio Giorello, and he did an interview with me. And I don’t know if he wrote it or not, but the headline in Corriere della Sera when it was published was “Sì, abbiamo un’anima. Ma è fatta di tanti piccoli robot – “Yes, we have a soul, but it’s made of lots of tiny robots.” And I thought, exactly. That’s the view. Yes, we have a soul, but in what sense? In the sense that our brains, unlike the brains even of dogs and cats and chimpanzees and dolphins, our brains have functional structures that give our brains powers that no other brains have – powers of look-ahead, primarily. We can understand our position in the world, we can see the future, we can understand where we came from. We know that we’re here. No buffalo knows it’s a buffalo, but we jolly well know that we’re members of Homo sapiens, and it’s the knowledge that we have and the can-do, our capacity to think ahead and to reflect and to evaluate and to evaluate our evaluations, and evaluate the grounds for our evaluations.It’s this expandable capacity to represent reasons that we have that gives us a soul. But what’s it made of? It’s made of neurons. It’s made of lots of tiny robots. And we can actually explain the structure and operation of that kind of soul, whereas an eternal, immortal, immaterial soul is just a metaphysical rug under which you sweep your embarrassment for not having any explanation.”

“There are many realities. There are many versions of what may appearobvious. Whatever appears as the unshakeable truth, its exact oppositemay also be true in another context. After all, one’s reality is butperception, viewed through various prisms of context.”

“In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable ; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth.”

“Set patterns, incapable of adaptability, of pliability, only offer a better cage. Truth is outside of all patterns.”

“Trust is always a good idea. For someone else.”

“The truth is revealed when you are ready to receive it when you need it in order to move forward to take the next step in your journey. to move on toward your destiny.”

“I’d rather have cancer than a dishonest heart. Which isn’t being pious. Just practical. Cancer may cool you, but the other’s sure to.”

“I wasn’t mean; I wasn’t evil. I was nice. And let me tell you, a hesitant man is the last thing in the world a woman needs. She needs a lover and a warrior, not a Really Nice Guy.”