“Christmas it seems to me is a necessary festival; we require a season when we can regret all the flaws in our human relationships: it is the feast of failure, sad but consoling.”

“It is perhaps sad books that best console us when we are sad, and to lonely service stations that we should drive when there is no one for us to hold or love.”

“The ones who are saying, "You can’t say 'happy holidays'. You have to say 'merry Christmas', because this is our season - this is the Christmas season." Well, it's not the Christmas season, it's the solstice season. And that's why it's not a war on Christmas. It's a war on the solstice, and the Christians started it.”

“The truly frightening flaw in humanity is our capacity for cruelty - we all have it.”

“Who wants to be a goddess when we can be human? Perfection is a flaw disguised as control.”

“It is said of the English, that formerly they were remarkable for the manner in which they celebrated the festival of Christmas; at which season they admitted variety of sports and pastimes not known, or little practised in other countries.”

“Our flaws are what makes us human. If we can accept them as part of who we are, they really don't even have to be an issue.”

“At a moment when it seems that our democracy is more defined by our discord and our dysfunction than by our own values and principles, let me begin by noting the somewhat obvious point that these offices that we hold are not ours indefinitely. We are not here simply to mark time. Sustained incumbency is certainly not the point of seeking office and there are times when we must risk our careers in favor of our principles. Now is such a time.It must also be said that I rise today with no small measure of regret. Regret because of the state of our disunion. Regret because of the disrepair and destructiveness of our politics. Regret because of the indecency of our discourse. Regret because of the coarseness of our leadership.”

“When we are confronted by failure and mistakes, we can leave them behind and go on with our lives.”

“Where the myth fails, human love begins. Then we love a human being, not our dream, but a human being with flaws.”