I am a man of vehement disposition, with violent enthusiasms, and extreme immoderation in all my passions.

I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can

There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate - the genetic and neural fate - of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.

there are other senses -­ secret senses, sixth senses, if you will -­ equally vital, but unrecognized, and unlauded.

I often feel that life is about to begin, only to realize it is almost over.

When I was five, I am told, and asked what my favorite things in the world were, I answered, smoked salmon and Bach.

And so was Luria, whose words now came back to me: ‘A man does not consist of memory alone. He has feeling, will, sensibility, moral being ... It is here ... you may touch him, and see a profound change.’ Memory, mental activity, mind alone, could not hold him; but moral attention and action could hold him completely.