Just try to keep the heart turned outward, as well as having moments inward.
People have a deep need to be legislators, and the idea of autonomy has become very precious.
To be a good human being is to have a kind of openness to the world, an ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control.
Knowledge is no guarantee of good behavior, but ignorance is a virtual guarantee of bad behavior.
To be a good human being is to have a kind of openness to the world, an ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control, that can lead you to be shattered in very extreme circumstances for which you were not to blame. That says something very important about the condition of the ethical life: that it is based on a trust in the uncertain and on a willingness to be exposed; it’s based on being more like a plant than like a jewel, something rather fragile, but whose very particular beauty is inseparable from that fragility.
Our emotional life maps our incompleteness: A creature without any needs would never have reasons for fear, or grief, or hope, or anger.
The humanities prepare students to be good citizens and help them understand a complicated, interlocking world. The humanities teach us critical thinking, how to analyze arguments, and how to imagine life from the point of view of someone unlike yourself.
Biographical data, even those recorded in the public registers, are the most private things one has, and to declare them openly is rather like facing a psychoanalyst.
I was rejected in school because I didn't look like the big-breasted, beautiful girls. I was awkward and sad. My mother always said, "Be original!" but I didn't understand until I changed to be like everyone else.
If there ever is a struggle, making a good movie will always supersede the need to be noble.
I was going to fight vampires, and my name wasn't Buffy--I was so screwed.