Anyone can slay a dragon, he told me, but try waking up every morning and loving the world all over again. That's what takes a real hero.

We lay there and looked up at the night sky and she told me about stars called blue squares and red swirls and I told her I'd never heard of them. Of course not, she said, the really important stuff they never tell you. You have to imagine it on your own.

My grandma used to plant tomato seedlings in tin cans from tomato sauce & puree & crushed tomatoes she got from the Italian restaurant by her house, but she always soaked the labels off first. I don't want them to be anxious about the future, she said. It's not healthy.

The birds brought seeds & flowers & bits of brightly colored string & placed them in her hair while she slept so she would remember the wild joy of spring when she finally awoke.

You're not going to see people like this again for a long time, he said and I said I always saw people like this & he looked at me for a moment and said, You're not from around here, are you?

I read once that the ancient Egyptians had fifty words for sand & the Eskimos had a hundred words for snow. I wish I had a thousand words for love, but all that comes to mind is the way you move against me while you sleep & there are no words for that.

There really is only one story that you need to tell as a scientist or a technologist. It's Prometheus stealing fire. That's it. That's what we do as scientists or technologists.