The Senegalese conservationist Baba Dioum can summarize: "In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught."

Life from nonlife, like wine from water, has long been considered a miracle wrought by gods or God. Now it is seen to be the near-inevitable consequence of our thermal and chemical circumstances.

Reverence is the sense that there is something larger than the self, larger even than the human, to which one accords respect and awe and assent.

The most reliable joy is to be out of doors, to be a creature among other creatures. I find it very restful.

We are embedded in the great evolutionary story of planet Earth, the spare, elegant process of mutation and selection and bricolage. And this means that we are anything but alone.

Human consensus does not generate reality. Were it able to do so, the Sun would have taken to orbiting the Earth some time ago.

When the responses elicited by the Epic of Evolution are gathered together several religious principles emerge that I can believe, serve as a framework for a global Ethos.

It is as we respond to the understandings and feelings inherent in . . . art that we acquire much of our truth, much of our nobility and grace, and much of our pleasure.

Where there is darkness, there is chaos and confusion, but when light shines, things are set in order and the light rules and governs.

Life is crazy, unexpected, and endlessly beautiful.

The best things in life are often waiting for you at the exit ramp of your comfort zone.

This team is one execution away from being a very good basketball team.

I showed up in L.A. with $500 and a backpack and I stayed at a shelter, so nobody handed me anything. I worked for every single thing that I have.

Riches begin in the form of thought.

The power of verse stems from an indefinable harmony between when it says and what it is.

I had some good opportunities. I was lucky to have had the chance to do things differently. Architecture is about surprise.

The greatest leader is not someone who is the only leader. The greatest leader is one who inspires others to be leaders.

The greatest dreams are always unrealistic.