“We feel such a strong connection to nature. But the relationship between nature and us is one-sided. There is no reciprocity. There is no mind on the other side of the wall.”

Who would fare better in this world of fitful time? Those who have seen the future and live only one life? Or those who have not seen the future and wait to live life? Or those who deny the future and live two lives?

For me, spirituality includes the belief in things larger than ourselves, an appreciation of nature and beauty, a sensitivity to the world, a feeling of shared connection with other living things, a desire to help people less fortunate than ourselves.

A novel has to be an emotional experience, a trip of the imagination, and because science has raised so many issues that concern and affect humans, it’s a good starting place for me.

Just didn’t know whether I would finish the book much less for it to come close to what I intended. I think that for any novel you never know exactly how the book is going to turn out…

I spend a lot of time just listening to the ospreys. I watch them go through their life cycle. They spend the winter in South America.

I think that the scienti?c way of looking at the world, and the humanistic way of looking at the world are complementary.

One metaphor for how we are living is that you see so may people with cell phones.

My second novel, “Good Benito”, was not finished. I wished that I had spent another year with it.

An unusual counterpoint between personal history and the history of a young nation. Haunting, powerful, and beautifully written.

While people can be doubted, time cannot be doubted. While people brood, time skips ahead without looking back.

Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone.

In this world, time has three dimensions, like space.

A good book changes for you every few years because you are in a different place in your own life. That’s a sign of a good novel.

Each future moves in a different direction of time. Each future is real.

Scientists turn reckless and mutter like gamblers who cannot stop betting. Scientists are buffoons, not because they are rational but because the cosmos is irrational.

A book, especially a longer book, it’s a different kind of force that pushes you through it. It’s a vision of the whole thing.

Only God is love, and for this love to be fully realized self must step aside. And not only do we not need a self to love God, but for the same reason we do not need a mind to know him, for that in us which knows God, is God.

You can only do so many things great, and you should cast aside everything else.

Maybe Rachel was right all along. Maybe the past is past, history is history, and you just push it aside and look for the future.

Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person.

It’s easier for the former masters to put aside the masks that hid their humanity than for the former slaves to recognise the faces underneath. Or to trust that this is not a new mask these are wearing.

The Spurs couldn’t put everything aside and just play the damn game.

Leave aside your regrets of the past and anxieties of the future And focus intelligently on the present. This is the best way of ensuring a positive future.

The term biodynamics – push it aside, it is verbosity. It doesn’t matter a bit.