The family is in flux, and signs of trouble are widespread. Expectations remain high. But realities are disturbing.

Leaving home in a sense involves a kind of second birth in which we give birth to ourselves.

We never get to the bottom of ourselves on our own. We discover who we are face to face and side by side with others in work, love and learning.

We have to treat others as part of who we are, rather than as a 'them' with whom we are in constant competition.

That happiness is to be attained through limitless material acquisition is denied by every religion and philosophy known to mankind, but is preached incessantly by every American television set.

...for limited purposes only, let me define religion as a set of symbolic forms and acts which relate man to the ultimate conditions of his existence.

However painful the process of leaving home, for parents and for children, the really frightening thing for both would be the prospect of the child never leaving home.

The central icon of Catholic Christianity is mother and child. That motif is so deep in not just our human experience but in our animal, biological past.

Our culture is at a critical cusp - a time that requires that we define what it means to be a citizen in a democracy. Within our nation we need to foster a greater sense of collective responsibility.

It's clear all the way through history that practices are primary and beliefs are secondary.

The problem of the universal is difficult in every case. The universal and the particular can never be separated; they always go hand in hand.

The Sodomy sea shall cast out fish, and make a noise in the night, which many have not known: but they shall all hear the voice thereof.

Without hope, we lose heart.

A person without a plan is a person with soggy dreams.

Let the blossoms of love beautify your heart.

Only if we transvalue the plain-vanilla standards of our life, we may bring back things to light and sense the lies behind perceptions. ("Behind the frosted glass")

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.

The true artist doesn't substitute immorality for morality. On the contrary, he always substitutes a finer morality for a grosser one.

As consumers we are incredibly discerning, we sense where has been great care in the design, and when there is cynicism and greed.

The absolute nothingness of death is a blessing. Something to look forward to.

You're not an idiot. You're just eccentric. (Selena) That's what they said about Mary Todd Lincoln. Until they locked her up. (Grace)