Elements and birthdays have been intertwined for me since boyhood, when I learned about atomic numbers.

In examining disease, we gain wisdom about anatomy and physiology and biology. In examining the person with disease, we gain wisdom about life.

Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.

The power of music to integrate and cure. . . is quite fundamental. It is the profoundest nonchemical medication.

My religion is nature. That’s what arouses those feelings of wonder and mysticism and gratitude in me.

Every act of perception, is to some degree an act of creation, and every act of memory is to some degree an act of imagination.

We see with the eyes, but we see with the brain as well. And seeing with the brain is often called imagination.

People will make a life in their own terms, whether they are deaf or colorblind or autistic or whatever. And their world will be quite as rich and interesting and full as our world.

If a man has lost a leg or an eye, he knows he has lost a leg or an eye; but if he has lost a self—himself—he cannot know it, because he is no longer there to know it.

Language, that most human invention, can enable what, in principle, should not be possible. It can allow all of us, even the congenitally blind, to see with another person’s eyes.

We speak not only to tell other people what we think, but to tell ourselves what we think. Speech is a part of thought.

Inspiration is always a surprising visitor.

Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.

Grace is the ability to accept change. Be open and supple

Chess is not just a game. It is a way of life.

Take therefore no thought of the morrow for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.

If you don't throw yourself into something, you'll never know what you could have had.

I'm not against being proud of where you come from but I feel like sometimes the divisions are a little too bold and it hurts us more than it helps us.

Maybe it's better like this, better that everything should go up in a blaze of dry grass and that people should begin again.

When you do something half-heartedly, you don't get much of a result. When you do it fully, you get a great result.

That is not all I need. I need dogs. A house filled with dogs and a smart, funny, kind, loving girlfriend or wife.