The ultimate fate of all intelligent beings has always been to become as grand as their thoughts.“

but in the end, the real power was wielded by time. Leaving behind a mark was tougher than creating a world. At the end of civilization, all they could do was the same thing they had done in the distant past, when humanity was but a babe: Carving words into stone.”

It constructed a world that gave it meaning, and only in that rosy world did the words of the language find their corresponding referents.”

or a question in pure natural philosophy that doesn’t need pencil and paper at all, like the origin of the universe, and then throw yourself entirely into research. Think only of planting, not reaping, and as you concentrate, an entire lifetime will pass before you know it.“

hears an echo of another language’s rhythms and cadences, and feels a tremor of another people’s gestures and movements."