"In our travels, we have come across many equations--math for understanding the universe, for making music, for mapping stars, and also for tipping, which is important. Here is our favorite equation: Us plus Them equals All of Us. It is very simple math. Try it sometime. You probably won’t even need a pencil."

-The Copenhagen Interpertagtion, ffrom 'Going Bovine', by Libba Bray

Tzu-kung asked about government. The Master said, “Sufficient food, sufficient weapons, and the confidence of the common people.” Tzu-kung said, “Suppose you were forced to dispense with one of these three, which would you forgo?” The Master said, “Weapons.” Tzu-kung said, “Suppose you were forced to dispense with one of the two that were left, which would you forgo?” The Master said, “Food. For…death has been the lot of all men, but a people that no longer trusts its rulers is lost indeed.”
--Confucius, Analects

The single most powerful statement to come out of brain research…is this:
“We are as different from one another on the inside of our heads as we appear to be different on the outside of our heads.”
--Robert Fulghum, It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It

Is my occupation what I get paid money for, or is it something larger and wider and richer—a matter of who I am or how I think about myself. Making a living and having a life are not the same thing. Making a living and making a life that’s worthwhile are not the same thing. Living the good life and living a good life are not the same thing. A job title doesn’t even come close to answering the question, “What do you do?”
--Robert Fulghum, It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It

I think I feel things far too much, not all of the time, but when I do it’s like traveling through space at the speed of light and it hits hard enough to bruise. When I love a person or a place or a thing I just can’t do it in small amounts, I love whatever it is so much that I feel like I could spontaneously combust. Starbursts in my head, raw nerves in my heart, electricity in my stomach. It’s desperate and sad and heartbreaking and it’s there. It’s the difference between thinking and feeling, and it is fiercer than a lion.

"In my son's eyes I see the ambition that had first hurled me across the world. In a few years he will graduate and pave his way, alone and unprotected. But I remind myself that he has a father who is still living, a mother who is happy and strong. Whenever he is discouraged, I tell him that if I can survive on three continents, then there is no obstacle he cannot conquer. While the astronauts, heroes forever, spent mere hours on the moon, I have remained in this new world for nearly thirty years. I know that my acheivement is quite ordinary. I am not the only man to seek his fortune far from home, and certainly I am not the first. Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination." "The Third and Final Continent," a story by Jhumpa Lahiri

Inside a snow globe on my father’s desk, there was a penguin wearing a red-and-white-striped scarf. When I was little my father would pull me into his lap and reach for the snow globe. He would turn it over, letting all the snow collect on the top, then quickly invert it. The two of us watched the snow fall gently around the penguin. The penguin was alone in there, I thought, and I worried for him. When I told my father this, he said, “Don’t worry, Susie; he has a nice life. He’s trapped in a perfect world”-Alice Sebold (The Lovely Bones)

"I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death."
— Robert Fulghum (All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten)