If this were fiction, could even the most brilliant novelist contrive to make credible so short a period in which pride had been subdued and prejudice overcome?

I don't see why escapist literature shouldn't also be a work of art.

It is surely unreasonable to credit that only one small star in the immensity of the universe is capable of developing and supporting intelligent life. But we shall not get to them and they will not come to us.

Ambition, if it were to be savored, let alone achieved, had to be rooted in possibility.

Man is diminished if he lives without knowledge of his past; without hope of a future he becomes a beast.

The great tragedy of Alzheimer's disease, and the reason why we dread it, is that it leaves us with no defence, not even against those who love us.

We can experience nothing but the present moment, live in no other second of time, and to understand this is as close as we can get to eternal life.