“Great moves of God are usually preceded by simple acts of obedience.”

“Enjoy the journey, because the destination is a mirage.”

“This is how great intellectual breakthroughs usually happen in practice. It is rarely the isolated genius having a eureka moment alone in the lab. Nor is it merely a question of building on precedent, of standing on the shoulders of giants, in Newton's famous phrase. Great breakthroughs are closer to what happens in a flood plain: a dozen separate tributaries converge, and the rising waters lift the genius high enough that he or she can see around the conceptual obstructions of the age.”

“Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here obedient to their laws we lie.”

“My anthropological back gets raised hackles with simple worlds and simple conflicts. Nothing's simple. Nothing ever was.”

“A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.”

“Beginnings are usually scary, endings are usually sad, but it's what's in the middle that counts. So when you find yourself at the beginning, just give hope a chance to float up. And it will.”