If people are not safe, they will not make themselves vulnerable. If they feel too comfortable, they can become complacent or lose their curiosity. They can become intellectually lazy about what matters most.

I have a principle I often invoke in class: comfortable people don't grow. Good teachers need to engage in the paradox of making students feel comfortable and uncomfortable in equal measure.

If people are not safe, they will not make themselves vulnerable. If they feel too comfortable, they can become complacent or lose their curiosity. They can become intellectually lazy about what matters most.

I would advise anyone who is at the start of a rest ritual like the Sabbath, to take it slowly and grow incrementally into it. Recognize that it will be hard at first. It's a discipline but then it is a true and deep joy.

I love lighting Shabbat candles at the onset of Shabbat. It helps me create a strong and firm demarcation of time.

In every life there is a challenge. For every challenge that I take on, if I follow through, I accomplish. When I have accomplished, then I have achieved. If I achieve, than I can proudly say I did my job well.

I don't read or write SF for cutting edge ideas; I read and write it for the storytelling, and every story is new. So have I brought anything new to it? Only in so far as no-one before has written about the characters I've invented in their particular situation.