“Life is something we need to stop correcting. My boy was a pocket universe I could never hope to fathom. Every one of us is an experiment, and we don’t even know what the experiment is testing.”

“A child’s question was the start of all things.”

“From Alpha-beams to the Omega Point, I lived in a parallel place that spawned scenarios of such infinite variety that they made a laughingstock of the little parochial rock in the galactic sticks where I lived. Nothing could hurt me so long as consensual reality was just a tiny atoll in an ocean without shores.” (Earth)

“Nine is the age of great turning. Maybe humanity was a nine-year-old, not yet grown up, not a little kid anymore. Seemingly in control, but always on the verge of rage.”

“They share a lot, astronomy and childhood. Both are voyages across huge distances. Both search for facts beyond their grasp. Both theorize wildly and let possibilities multiply without limits. Both are humbled every few weeks. Both operate out of ignorance. Both are mystified by time. Both are forever starting out.”

“That’s the ruling story on this planet. We live suspended between love and ego.”

“Fascination had made him invincible.”

“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.”

“Robbie was right: we needed universal mandatory courses of neural feedback training, like passing the Constitution test or getting a driver’s license. The template animal could be a dog or a cat or a bear or even one of my son’s beloved birds. Anything that could make us feel what it was like to not be us.”

“If some small but critical mass of people recovered a sense of kinship, economics would become ecology. We’d want different things. We’d find our meaning out there.”