“If I were not a writer, I would spend more time doing the things that I am already doing, which include doing research in physics, teaching, and running a nonprofit organization with a mission to empower women in Cambodia.”

When the first mechanical clocks were invented, marking off time in crisp, regular intervals, it must have surprised people to discover that time flowed outside their own mental and physiological processes.

Unfortunately, public debates do not have much room for subtlety. The audience wants a quick thrust at your opponent, not a slow and convoluted series of moves.

Our species has advanced from Stone Age to Industrial Revolution to Digital Emptiness. We’ve become weightless, in the bad sense of the word.

And at the place where time stands still, one sees lovers kissing in the shadows of buildings, in a frozen embrace that will never let go.

I think all tragedies are best told with some humor. You have to relieve the darkness to let the reader get through it. Also, that life has happiness and sadness mixed together.

We try to impose order, both in our minds and in our conceptions of external reality.

it is sometimes hard to tell what is real. We often invent what isn’t there. Or ignore what is.

I wouldn’t overall say that “The Diagnosis” is a funny book. I would say that it has comic moments. It’s a modern tragedy.

The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in atime of pain or of joy.

I go to live in Maine for the summer. Without computer, and without the telephone service we are mercifully without the faxes and e-mails.

With infinite life comes an infinite list of relatives. Grandparents never die, nor do great grandparents, great-aunts…and so on, back through the generations, all alive and offering advice.

Tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions happen without the slightest consideration for human inhabitants.

When they are on their cell phones they are not where their bodies are…they are somewhere else in hyperspace. They are not grounded.

Events, once happened, lose reality, alter with a glance, a storm, a night. In time, the past never happened. But who could know? Who could know that the past is not as solid as this instant.

In our constant search for meaning in this baffling and temporary existence, trapped as we are within our three pounds of neurons,

The world is moving faster and faster, but where are we going?I think one of the reasons why things are getting blurry is because there is not much meaning.

Within today, tomorrow is already walking.

Buy what you don’t have yet, or what you really want, which can be mixed with what you already own. Buy only because something excites you, not just for the simple act of shopping.

I’ve already told you: the only way to a woman’s heart is along the path of torment. I know none other as sure.

And thus I aspire to preach the gospel, not where Christ was already named so that I would not build on another man’s foundation.

They are gifted with the powers of being mothers, but not nursing mothers. Nature gives them bosoms for show, but not for use. So Lady Arabella had a wet-nurse.

Vee lowered her lashes and smiled wickedly. “this class isn’t going to teach me anything i don’t already know.” “vee? As in virgin?” “not so loud.” she winked just as the bell rang, sending us both to our seats, which were side by side at our shared table.

Dont panic, i thought. But already my breathing was faster, shallower. You mean you can feel happy or sad or desire. A barely-there smile.

I’ve worked countless hours in the gym, so I feel like I’m already prepared for the game.