We tend to think of heroes only in terms of violent combat, whether it's against enemies or a natural disaster. But human beings also perform radical acts of compassion; we just don't talk about them, or we don't talk about them as much.

Tranquillity hides in small spaces, and when found needs to be treasured, because you know it's a phantom that will slip away again.

I am a great fan of the universe, which I take literally: as one. All of it interests me, and it interests me in detail.

... love is an act of sedition, a revolt against reason, an uprising in the body politic, a private mutiny.

...for most people in the [Jewish] Ghetto [of Warsaw] nature lived only in memory -- no parks, birds, or greenery existed in the Ghetto -- and they suffered the loss of nature like a phantom-limb pain, an amputation that scrambled the body's rhythms, starved the senses, and made basic ideas about the world impossible for children to fathom.

We are defined by how we place our attention.

For if I do something, I never do it thoughtlessly.