Petting, scratching, and cuddling a dog could be as soothing to the mind and heart as deep meditation and almost as good for the soul as prayer.

A long walk and grooming with a well-mannered dog is a Zen experience that leaves you refreshed and in a creative frame of mind.

Pain is a gift. Humanity, without pain, would know neither fear nor pity. Without fear, there could be no humility, and every man would be a monster. The recognition of pain and fear in others give rise in us to pity, and in our pity is our humanity, our redemption.

Faced with the challenge of an endless universe, Man will be forced to mature further, just as the Neanderthal-faced with an entire planet-had no choice but to grow away from the tradition of savagery.

Appearances are not reality; but they often can be a convincing alternative to it. You can control appearances most of the time, but facts are what they are. When the facts are too sharp, you can craft a cheerful version of the situation and cover the facts the way that you can covered a battered old four-slice toaster with a knitted cozy featuring images of kittens.

Sometimes it seemed that the human heart, this side of Eden, feared life more than death, light more than darkness, freedom more than surrender.

Fire, ice, asteroids and pole shifts are bogeymen with which we distract ourselves from the real threat of our time. In an age when everyone invents his own truth, there is no community, only factions. Without community, there can be no consensus to resist the greedy, the envious, the power-mad narcissists who seize control and turn the institutions of civilization into a series of doom machines.