We even make ourselves up, fusing what we are with what we wish into what we must become. I'm not sure why it must be so, but it is.

Life is lumpy. And a lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat, and a lump in a breast are not the same lump. One should learn the difference.

I don't think there is a hidden purpose to the universe that you have to puzzle out.

A giraffe has a black tongue twenty-seven inches long and no vocal cords. A giraffe has nothing to say. He just goes on giraffing.

Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens.... My grandfather would say we're part of something incredibly wonderful - more marvelous than we imagine. My grandfather would say we ought to go out and look at it once in a while so we don't lose our place in it.

The leaves let go, the seeds let go, and I must let go sometimes, too, and cast my lot with another of nature’s imperfect but tenacious survivors.

I'd like to speak a foreign language well enough to get the jokes. I'd like to talk with Socrates, and watch Michelangelo sculpt David. I'd like to see the world as it was a million years ago and a million years hence.