One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.

Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic.

I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this cosmos in which we float, like a mote of dust in the morning sky.

There are lots of ways to communicate what we know, but few ways to communicate what we feel. Music is one way to communicate emotions.

The universe forces those who live in it to understand it.

Human beings have a demonstrated talent for self-deception when their emotions are stirred.