We Americans are tempted to distinguish ourselves from other current and former inhabitants of this planet by assuming that we are ruled by "progress."

Dinner is to a day what dessert is to dinner.

The necessity of loyalty between friends, the responsibility that the strong owe the infirm, the illusion of ill-gotten gain, the rewards of hard work, honesty, and trust-these are enduring truths glimpsed and judged first through the imagination, first through art.

Love transforms: it simultaneously makes us larger and limits our possibilities. It changes our history even as it breaks a new path through the present.