“Americans are hyper-vulnerable to social influences because we emphasize individualism. Everyone is encouraged to be an individual, to deny the influence that communities have on us. But that causes us to look around even more for cues on how we should be acting. It sets us up for extreme conformity and the kind of group scene we saw at Abu Ghraib.”

“I think we need to be very attentive to attending to suffering in our patients and do everything we can to help minimize and ameliorate it. African Americans and other minorities are at greater risk of not dying well.”

“Clergy look at their occupation as a calling. A pastor does get called on to enter into some of the deepest moments of a person's life, celebrating a birth and sitting with people at times of illness or death. There's a lot of fulfillment.”

“Everybody is watching the Episcopal Church to see how this goes. If it comes apart, in a way, it's too bad because it's about Protestantism's only entry into this kind of global sweepstakes, a kind of international church that tries to regulate itself internationally.”