Libraries change lives. They are the soul of a people.

Variety is the pledge that matter makes to living things.

Which is crueler, an old man's lost memories of a life lived, or a young man's lost memories of the life he meant to live?

I don't want to be a passenger in my own life.

In the winter, I enjoy cross-country skiing and raising orchids and amaryllises. If I could grow tropical flowers as perennials, I would, especially hibiscus and mandavilla.

The brain is only three pounds of blood, dream, and electricity, and yet from that mortal stew come Beethoven's sonatas. Dizzie Gillespie's jazz. Audrey Hepburn's wish to spend the last month of her life in Somalia, saving children.

Artificial intelligence is growing up fast, as are robots whose facial expressions can elicit empathy and make your mirror neurons quiver.