The whole cosmos was infinitely less than the whole of being . . . the whole infinity of being underlay every moment of the cosmos.

Spring will keep coming back, whatever happens. Right, Dad?

In this place, with such a species, trapped in such technologies, even a simple head count grew impossible. Only pure bewilderment kept us from civil war.

We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers.

The world had become something no schoolchild should be allowed to discover.

But then, I’d also never imagined that the Secretary of Education would cut funding from grade schools that taught evolution.

Earth had two kinds of people: those who could do the math and follow the science, and those who were happier with their own truths. But in our hearts’ daily practice, whatever schools we went to, we all lived as if tomorrow would be a clone of now.

every one of them still up there but erased by the light of day.

In the face of the world’s basic brokenness, more empathy meant deeper suffering. The question wasn’t why Robin was sliding down again. The question was why the rest of us were staying so insanely sanguine.