“How did a nation founded on so much heartache turn into a culture of normative smiles?”

“A moment or an eternity—did it matter? Life, undefeated, existed and could exist. She smiled, her last smile, to so much that had been possible.”

“Racism is not the norm in mainstream Western culture or in its institutions: not even close to the norm.”

“A baseball bat could not have hit me harder than that smile did. I was sixteen years old. In that time, how many thousands of smiles had been aimed at me? so why did this one feel like the first?”

“How do you do that?” Mennis asked, frowning.
“What?”
“Smile so much.”
“Oh, I’m just a happy person.”

“Keep smiling, because life is a beautiful thing and there's so much to smile about.”

“With any luck. Stark smiled cynically. Not that he did not believe in luck. Rather, he had found it to be an uncertain ally.”

“You can never have too much coffee”, I said
He turned and smiled at me. “You think so, but the rest of us get a little OD’ed on your level of caffeine.”

“Ronald Dworkin… argues that our law includes not only norms found in treaties, customs, constitutions, statutes, and cases, but also moral principles that provide the best justification for the norms found there.5 On his account, the things justified by moral.”

“Suffering is not enough. Life is both dreadful and wonderful… How can I smile when I am filled with so much sorrow? It is natural--you need to smile to your sorrow because you are more than your sorrow.”