“I am spellbound by the plays of Shakespeare. And I am spellbound by the second law of thermodynamics.”

I think Joe Leiberman has been one of the leaders of the country… people have such a broad respect for him as a moral force.

Music is, of course, a universal emotional experience, cutting across cultures and languages. I studied piano for ten years as a child and consider that experience one of the most valuable in my life.

Time is the clarity for seeing right and wrong.

All beliefs not in such contradiction may be considered as faith. Whether faith in a particular belief is beneficial or not is another matter.

At every point of decision, the world splits into three worlds, each with the same people, but different fates for those people. In time, there are an infinity of worlds.

We try to connect. We try to find truth. We dream and we hope. And underneath all of these strivings, we are haunted by the suspicion that what we see and understand of the world is only a tiny piece of the whole.

The world is moving faster and faster, but where are we going?

The future is pattern, organization, union, intensification; the past, randomness, confusion, disintegration, dissipation.

Every essay – the subject matter of every essay – is ultimately about the essayist; him or herself. That ultimately, every essayist is writing about his or her view of the world.

Sons never escape from the shadows of their fathers. Nor do daughters of their mothers. No one ever comes into his own…Such is the cost of immortality. No person is whole. No person is free.

Franz Kafka is an idea person. His books begin and end in ideas. Ideas have always been important to me in my writing.

I have also been fascinated for a long time with the intersection of science and religion.

I think people all over the institution recognize that different ways of understanding are valuable. Artists may think in a different way than biologists or chemists, but you can learn something from that.

It is a world in which every word spoken speaks just to that moment, every glance given has only one meaning.

Will never fail to show his love, will never become jealous, will never fall in love with someone else, will never lose the passion of this instant of time.

The exploding star of A.D. 1054, the Crab Nebula, was sighted and documented by the Chinese, but nowhere mentioned in the West, where the Aristotelian notion of the immortality of stars still held sway.

It’s almost as important as Shakespeare’s to be or not to be which deals with death.

He is still my favourite author, and he is the one – I still think – who writes most honestly about human existence.

The books, the authors who matter the most are those who speak to me and speak for me all those things about life I most need to hear as the confession of myself

Anthony Heilbut has been a guide and a mentor to me. I know of no one who has the love and depth of knowledge of this extraordinary author.

Trust in your abilities and you’re the author of your own destiny.

The sower of the seed is assuredly the author of the whole harvest of mischief.

I’m dedicated to bringing to life what the author is trying to portray.

The authors I prefer are all very different and are not limited to certain genres or even certain time periods.