“No one, from pontiffs to professors, has a monopoly on the truth. In the end, we are all just travelers--not scientists or mystics or any one brand of thinker. By nature, we are scientists and mystics, reductionists and holists, left-brained and right-brained, mixed up creatures trying to catch an occasional glimpse of the truth. The best we can do is to be tolerant of both sides of our nature--knowing that these reflect the twin aspect of the universe--and learn from whatever wisdom is offered.”

“What we learn is that the scientist is as important a part of this experiment as the electron, and that the scientist and the electron are in fact connected. This experiment is the cornerstone of the holistic universe theory.”

“We are the one creature to whom natural selection has bequeathed a brain complex enough to comprehend the laws that govern the universe. And we should be proud that we are the only species that has figured how we came to be.”

“Confident that cast-iron walls separate our nature and situation from theirs, comfortable in the well-broken-in saddle of our high horse, we have exchanged our capacity to be tolerant for detachment and derision.It is the tragedian's task, then, to force us to confront an almost unbearable truth: every folly or myopia of which any human being in history has been guilty may be traced back to some aspect of our collective nature. Because we each bear within ourselves the whole of the human condition, in its worst and best aspects, any one of us might be capable of doing anything at all, or nothing, under the right—or rather the most horribly wrong—conditions.”

“By living our lives, we nurture death. True as this might be, it was only one of the truths we had to learn. What I learned from Naoko's death was this: no truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see it through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sorrow that comes to us without warning.”

“A scientist shouldn't be asked to judge the economic and moral value of his work. All we should ask the scientist to do is find the truth and then not keep it from anyone.”