What an odd, ruminating, noisy, self-interrupting conversation we conduct with ourselves from birth to death.

One of the keystones of romantic love - and also of the ecstatic religion practiced by mystics - is the powerful desire to become one with the beloved.

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.

Mystery causes a mental itch, which the brain tries to soothe with the balm of reasonable talk.

Things that live by night live outside the realm of 'normal' time and so suggest living outside the realm of good and evil, since we have moralistic feelings about time. Chauvinistic about our human need to wake by day and sleep by night, we come to associate night dwellers with people up to no good at a time when they have the jump on the rest of us and are defying nature, defying their circadian rhythms.

Nature neither gives nor expects mercy.

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