If you want magic, let go of your armor. Magic is so much stronger than steel.

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.

Two things I do value a lot, intimacy and the capacity for joy, didn't seem to be on anyone else s list. I felt like the stranger in a strange land, and decided I'd better not marry the natives.

To fly as fast as thought, to anywhere that is, you must begin by knowing that you have already arrived.

Humanity is not a gift of nature, it is a spiritual achievement to be earned.

Were we, also, hiking along some cosmic journal page? Were the events about us all part of a message we could understand, if only we found the right perspective from which to read them? Somehow, with our long series of miracles, I thought so.

I want to be very close to someone I respect and admire and have somebody who feels the same way about me.