I know that knowledge and intelligence are not the same thing – but they do live in the same neighborhood. I know once again, firsthand, the joy of learning.
Med students panic their first year when they learn all the diseases. It’s not until the second year that they learn the cures.
My immune system has always been overly welcoming of germs. It’s far too polite, the biological equivalent of a southern hostess inviting y’all nice microbes to stay awhile and have some artichoke dip.
I know that history is simultaneously a bloody mess and a collection of feats so inspiring and amazing they make you proud to share the same DNA structure with the rest of humanity. I know you’d better focus on the good stuff or you’re screwed.
I’m addicted to self-improvement. The thing is, there’s so damn much about myself to improve.
Jealousy is a useless, time-wasting emotion that’s eating me alive.
After a while, if you’re committed, you start to believe in the things in which you’re praying. It’s just cognitive dissonance. You can’t live a completely religious life and not start to have it sink in.
Scrabble – The game is available in Braille. That’s a nice fact. This makes me feel better about humanity for some reason. I can’t really explain why.
I am officially Jewish, but I’m Jewish in the same way the Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant.
In trying to avoid one sin I’ve committed another.
I love it when the Bible gives Emily Post-like tips that are both wise and easy to follow.
It’s hard to be in a bad mood when you’re walking around looking like you’re about to play the semifinals at Wimbledon.
The Bible talks a lot about thankfulness, and I’m more thankful than I ever was. I try to concentrate on the hundreds of things that go right in a day, instead of the three or four that go wrong.
When I went to Israel, it was a little disorienting, because there are so many people who look crazy and were dressed like me. There, I was just one of the apocalyptic crowd.
This is what the Sabbath should feel like. A pause. Not just a minor pause, but a major pause. Not just lowering the volume, but a muting. As the famous rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel put it, the Sabbath is a sanctuary in time.
Sometimes miracles occur only when you jump in.
It comes back to the old question: How can the Bible be so wise in some places and so barbaric in others? And why should we put any faith in a book that includes such brutality?
I thought religion would make me live with my head in the clouds, but as often as not, it grounds me in this world.
Paintings! They’re like TV, but they don’t move.
When I was with the serpent-handlers in Tennessee, it was the most bizarre method of worship I could think of. Yet when you sit with these people, you can kind of see how it makes sense.