“Time that had not come yetan anomaly in itselfhad the fiercest reality for her. It was a hard wind in her face; if she had made the world, every tree would be bent, every stone weathered, every bou...”

“Over the years we seem to have become habituated, even addicted, to the notion of radical threat, threat of the kind that can make virtually anything seem expendable if it does not serve an immedia...”

“I experience religious dread whenever I find myself thinking that I know the limits of Gods grace, since I am utterly certain it exceeds any imagination a human being might have of it. God does, af...”

“Of my conception I know only what you know of yours. It occurred in darkness and I was unconsenting... By some bleak alchemy what had been mere unbeing becomes death when life is mingled with it.”

“To recognize our bias toward error should teach us modesty and reflection, and to forgive it should help us avoid the inhumanity of thinking we ourselves are not as fallible as those who, in any in...”

“What if good institutions were in fact the product of good intentions? What if the cynicism that is supposed to be rigor and the acquisitiveness that is supposed to be realism are making us forget ...”

“Ignorance is hardly unusual, Miss Davar. The longer I live, the more I come to realize that it is the natural state of the human mind. There are many who will strive to defend its sanctity and then...”

“An idea occurs in the mind, where it is confined and useless. An idea lives when it leaves the mind.”

“Inside the human mind, an idea is a mental spark that occurs as a response to the challenge of a train of thought.”

“The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.”

“[I]sn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be part of it?”

“I have not yet lost a feeling of wonder, and of delight, that the delicate motion should reside in all the things around us, revealing itself only to him who looks for it.”