An ironic revelation of the television-computer age is that what people want from machines is humanity: stories, contact, and interaction. - Thomas Lewis

The person of the therapist is the converting catalyst, not his order or credo, not his spatial location in the room, not his exquisitely chosen words or denominational silences. So long as the rules of a therapeutic system do not hinder limbic transmission - a critical caveat - they remain inconsequential, neocortical distractions. The dispensable trappings of dogma may determine what a therapist thinks he is doing, what he talks about when he talks about therapy, but the agent of change is who he is. (187)

DNA is not the heart’s destiny; the genetic lottery may determine the cards in your deck, but experience deals the hand you can play.

When trying to fathom an immense, intricate system, drawing direct arrows of causality between micro and macro-components is perilous. Which stock caused the crash of ’29? Which person triggered the outbreak of World War I? Which word of Poe’s “The Rave” suffuses it with an atmosphere of brooding melancholy?