I do not agree with this century's fashion of running down the human species as a failed try, a doomed sport. At our worst, we may be going through the early stages of adolescence, and everyone remembers what that is like.

How Americans restore trust may be an existential question for their country, then, but it's ultimately a practical one: What U.S. society needs to answer it in the coming years aren't lamentations but practical measures, especially among the emerging generations that will define America's future.

Who are you to condemn another's sin? He who condemns sin becomes part of it, espouses it.

The world is all alike. Those that seem better than their neighbours are only more artful. They mean the same thing, though they take a different road.

The faintest gleam of their lost memories glimmered for the briefest moment in their hearts.

When something is universal enough in our everyday lives, we take it for granted to the point of forgetting it exists.