Thomas Lewis quotes:

I don't believe in God for the same reason that most people don't believe in Apollo or Zeus. ... God is just human beings' way of personifying an otherwise completely natural universe.

Being well regulated in relatedness is the deeply gratifying state that people seek ceaselessly in romance, religions, and cults; in husbands and wives, pets, softball teams, bowling leagues, and a thousand other features of human life driven by the thirst for sustaining affiliations. (157)

One brain's blueprint may promote joy more readily than most; in another, pessimism reigns. Whether happiness infuses or eludes a person depends, in part, on the DNA he has chanced to receive. (152)

Everything a person is and everything he knows resides in the tangled thicket of his intertwined neurons. These fateful, tiny bridges number in the quadrillions, but they spring from just two sources: DNA and daily life. The genetic code calls some synapses into being, while experience engenders and modifies others.(148)