I have lived with magic and without magic, and I can tell you with certainty that a life with magic is better.

As Jeremy Bentham had asked about animals well over two hundred years ago, the question was not whether they could reason or talk, but could they suffer? And yet, somehow, it seemed to take more imagination for humans to identify with animal suffering than it did to conceive of space flight or cloning or nuclear fusion. Yes, she was a fanatic in the eyes of most of the country. . .Mostly, however, she just lacked patience for people who wouldn't accept her belief that humans inflicted needless agony on the animals around them, and they did so in numbers that were absolutely staggering.

And though some days it is very hard, I try not to live for the future. And I try not to dream of the past.

Dead … might not be quiet at all.

My wife and I would be very comfortable having a baby at home, or using one of the terrific nurse-midwives at the hospital.

Life is filled with small moments that seem prosaic until one has the distance to look back and see the chain of large moments they unleashed.

But it's funny how the memory works and how sometimes we just belive whatever we want.