"We live in a society whose whole policy is to excite every nerve in the human body and keep it at the highest pitch of artificial tension, to strain every human desire to the limit and to create as many new desires and synthetic passions as possible. " - Thomas Merton (1948)

"...curbing addiction would demand that American cultura establish a 'tolerance ofr delay' and 'ultimate goals in life other than sense gratification.' " - from America Anonymous by Benoit Denizet-Lewis

"Yet, whether we were aware of it or not, our entire being had been molded by our failure, or refusal, to solve from within the problems of our real lives: insecurity, loneliness, and lack of any abiding sense of personal worth or dignity. Through sex, charm, emotional appeal, or persuasive intellect, we had used other people as 'drugs,' to avoid facing our own personal inadequacy. " - Sex & Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA) from America Anonymous by Benoit Denizet-Lewis

" 'It's about the thinking. It's the fauly thinking that gives us permission. In Al-Anon they say 'My mind is a dangerous neighborhood, I can't go there alone.' And some days, that's really quite true. It is about justification. It isn't that we're maniacs.' " - from America Anonymous by Benoit Denizet-Lewis

"Words have meaning and names have power. The universe began with a word, you know? But which came first. The word or the thought behind the word. You can't create language without thought. And you can't conceive a thought without language. So, which created the other, and thus created the universe?" - Lorien in Babylon 5

"Just stand there in your wrongness and be wrong and get used to it." - President Bartlett in 'The West Wing'