Words were like objects, making the idea more solid -- less a poisonous gas and more a ... cube of crystallized thought.

Any allegiance to a deity or concept or universal principal which put obedience above decent behavior toward an innocent human being evil.

I now understand the need for faith - pure, blind, fly-in-the-face-of-reason faith - as a small life preserver in the wild and endless sea of a universe ruled by unfeeling laws and totally indifferent to the small, reasoning beings that inhabit it.

If there is a true religion in the universe, it must include the truth of contact or be forever hollow.

It started 25 years ago, when I was teaching elementary school in a small town in Missouri

Fate and victory shift ... now this way, now that way -- like a line of unarmored men under a hail of enemy arrows.

As long as my sixth graders showed an average improvement of five years, the principal and district pretty much left me alone to create my own curriculum and teach whatever I wanted