“Sophie left the den and wandered about in the large garden. She tried to forget what she had learned at school, especially in science classes.If she had grown up in this garden without knowing anything at all about nature, how would she feel about the spring?Would she try to invent some kind of explanation for why it suddenly started to rain one day? Would she work out some fantasy to explain where the snow went and why the sun rose in the morning?”

“The stupidest thing she knew was for people to act like they knew all about the things they knew absolutely nothing about.”

“Indeed, there is pain when spring buds burst..."Wasn't there a Swedish poet who had said something like that? Or was she Finnish?”

“let's say you and a small child go to a magic show, where things are made to float in the air. Which of you would have the most fun?""I probably would.""And why would that be?""Because I would know how impossible it all is.""So... for the child it's no fun to see the laws of nature being defied before it has learned what they are.""I guess that's right.""And we are still at the crux of Hume's philosophy of experience. He would have added that the child has not yet become a slave of the expectations of habit; he is thus the more open-minded of you two. I wonder if the child is not also the greater philosopher? He comes utterly without preconceived opinions. And that, my dear Sophie, is the philosopher's most distinguishing virtue. The child perceives the world as it is, without putting more into things than he experiences”

“Wisest is she who knows she does not know.”

“She felt that it was only her body that was getting old. Inside she had always been the same young girl.”

“But she’d managed to find her way into our reality, perhaps because she had an important mission here, perhaps because she was here to save us from what people call the monotony of life.”