He liked the fact that Venice had no cars. It made the city human. The streets were like veins, he thought, and the people were the blood, circulating everywhere.

Before you come alive, life is nothing; it 's up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing else but the meaning that you choose.

Hard power makes sense under some circumstances. But there's not a universal solution to global problems.

When he sees little kids sitting in the backseat of cars, in those little car seats that have steering wheels, with grim expressions of concentration on their faces, clearly convinced that their efforts are causing the car to do whatever it is doing, he thinks of himself and his relationship with God: God who drives along silently, gently amused, in the real driver's seat.

Death is a great revealer of what is in a man, and in its solemn shadow appear the naked lineaments of the soul.

Who should listen to discussions of theology? Those for whom it is a serious undertaking, not just another subject like any other for entertaining small-talk, after the races, the theater, songs, food, and sex: for there are people who count chatter on theology and clever deployment of arguments as one of their amusements.