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Whatever matters to human beings, trust is the atmosphere in which it thrives.

When we undertake to deceive others intentionally, we communicate messages meant to mislead them, meant to make them believe what we ourselves do not believe. We can do so through gesture, through disguise, by means of action or inaction, even through silence.

Any awareness of how lies spread must generate a real sensitivity to the fact that most lies believed to be white are unnecessary if not downright undesirable.

The role that one assigns to truthfulness will always remain central in considering what kind of person one wants to be—how one wishes to treat, not only other people, but oneself.

I’m surprised when I remember that, physically, I resemble most women in this country. In the United States, a woman who is 5 feet 4 inches and a size 10 is probably more common than virtually any other body type. But somehow when she is on-screen it’s shocking to people, almost as shocking as seeing a married couple on TV where the man and woman are roughly the same age.

People seldom look very hard for things they don’t want to find.

It means I’ve been changed, fundamentally and permanently. It means I cannot be put back to what I was.

That’s why I am B: I cannot be put back to what I was.

Without a standing army, a king is just a windbag in fancy clothes.

No two journeys are ever alike, because no two pupils are ever alike.

What works, evidently, is cultural diversity. This should not come as a surprise. If culture is viewed as a biological phenomenon, then we should expect to see diversity favored over uniformity. A thousand designs—one for every locale and situation—always works better than one design for all locals and situations. Birds are more likely to survive in ten thousand nest patterns than in one. Mammals are more likely to survive in ten thousand social patterns that in one. And humans are more likely to survive in ten thousand cultures than in one—as we are in the process of proving right now. We’re in the process of making the world unlivable for ourselves—precisely because everyone is being forced to live a single way. There would be no problem if only one person in ten thousand lived the way we live. The problem appears only as we approach the point where only one person in ten thousand is permitted to live any other way than the way we live. In a world of ten thousand cultures, one culture can be completely mad and destructive, and little harm will be done. In a world of one culture—and that one culture completely mad and destructive—catastrophe is inevitable.

Crimes are what the state defines as crimes.

The world must live, the world must live! We are only one species among billions. The gods don’t love us more than they love spiders or bears or whales or water lilies.