As both a scientist and a humanist myself, I have struggled to understand different claims to knowledge, and I have eventually come to a formulation of the kind of religious belief that would, in my view, be compatible with science.

Each time is true, but the truths are not the same.

Every reader gets something different from a book and every reader, in a sense, completes it in a different way.

Faith is the ability to honor stillness at some moments, and at others to ride the passion and exuberance.

The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in a time of pain or joy.

There is a place where time stands still ...illuminated by only the most feeble red light, for light is diminished to almost nothing at the center of time, its vibrations slowed to echoes in vast canyons, its intensity reduced to the faint glow of fireflies.

I picked such seemingly disparate essays, I thought it was important to say what was the guiding principle in the selection rather than focus on any one essay. I reached for some principle that had been subconscious in me and lifted it into consciousness. Authenticity and sincerity were the most important unifying principles of all these apparently different essays.