Science was many things, Nadia thought, including a weapon with which to hit other scientists.

You can only kill disappointment with a new try.

On the river path in Boston beauty was most expressed as youth and intelligence. That made sense; sixty degree-giving institutions, some three hundred thousand students; that meant at least one hundred fifty thousand more nubile young women than demographics would ordinarily suggest. Maybe that was why young men stayed in Boston when their college years were over, maybe that explained why they were so intellectually hyperactive, so frustrated, so alcoholic, such terrible drivers.

The sky itself is the eighth color of the rainbow, spread over the whole sky for us, all the time.

Beauty was the promise of happiness, not happiness itself; and the anticipated world was often more rich than anything real.

When it comes to the environment, the invisible hand never picks up the check.

It is always the teacher who must learn the most... or else nothing real has happened in the exchange.