Beauty is not required. Beauty is accuracy's distraction.

The only thing more unthinkable than leaving was staying; the only thing more impossible than staying was leaving. I didn't want to destroy anything or anybody. I just wanted to slip quietly out the back door, without causing any fuss or consequences, and then not stop running until I reached Greenland.

I said, "It seems like you have fond feelings toward your ex-wife. Are you two still close?" "Nah," he said casually. "She thinks I changed my name to Motherfucker."

For most of Western civilization there was no real division between the realms of science, divinity, and artistic endeavor - they were just three strands of the same braid, all of them pulling toward the same beautiful desire: to try to understand the workings of this curious and beautiful world. There were many people who would have called themselves all three things at once: men of god, men of science, men of the arts.

We can change our wives,” he said. “We can change our jobs, our nationalities and even our religions, but we can never change our team.

Look - I understand that an unexamined life is not worth living, but do you think I could someday have an unexamined lunch?

I was perfectly happy in my boring life before you came along.