“He stares at me. “So you’re telling me that you obey all my orders, because honestly that would be news to me?” “I always obey your orders,” I say indignantly. “I am quite possibly the best assistant in history.” “That would certainly be true, if you were the only assistant in history.”

“It was always like that. They never said sorry. They just threw down their still-loaded weapons, ready for next time.”

“Love is a decision?’ ‘That’s right. A decision. Not a feeling. That’s what you young people don’t realise. That’s why you’re always off divorcing each other.”

“Too often, parents today allow their desire to please their child to govern their parenting. If your relationship with your child is governed by your own desire to be loved by him or her, the odds are good that you will not achieve even that objective.”

“There's never been an act done since the beginning, from a kid stealing candy to a dictator committing genocide, that the person doing it didn't think he was fully justified. That's a mental trick called rationalizing, and it's done the human race more harm than anything else you can name.”

“I'm asking you to forget everything you know about True Love. The real kind doesn't make you selfish and shortsighted. Real love makes you better than you ever knew you could be.”

“If we are going to get any real change, we need to elect honest, compassionate politicians with integrity, who truly care about all the people.”

“Depressing thought: my friends were the girls I ate lunch with, all buddies from kindergarten who knew one another so well we weren't sure if we even liked one another anymore.”