The only thing that shatters dreams is compromise.

Remember the high board at the swimming pool? After days of looking up at it you finally climbed the wet steps to the platform. From there, it was higher than ever. There were only two ways down: the steps to defeat of the dive to victory. You stood on the edge, shivering in the hot sun, deathly afraid. At last you leaned too far forward, it was too late for retreat, and you dived. The high board was conquered, and you spent the rest of the day diving. Climbing a thousand high boards, we demolish fear, and turn into human beings.

We [people] have the power to destroy ourselves as well as the environment. As a species we love what I'd call brinks-person-ship, going right to the edge of disaster and somehow managing to pull back and recover. But my bet is still on the creative and playful and positive in the species. I think we will manage to survive and gradually turn things around.

Look in the mirror and one thing is sure: what we see is not who we are.

We can start working with time if you wish," Chiang said, "till you can fly the past and the future. And then you will be ready to begin the most difficult, the most powerful, the most fun of all. You will be ready to begin to fly up and know the meaning of kindness and of love.

Like most writers, we like to find what we know and pass it along to anyone who cares. When that's done, as soon as we've said the best we can say, there's nothing else about us that's remotely interesting to anybody else, and we go back behind the walls. We can be intimate in books, we can be intimate in talks, but then we need time to be alone.

That which most concerns and worries you - your survival - is the only certainty you have.