We all have different lives, Martin believes – but in the end probably feel the same things, and regret the fear we thought might somehow sustain us.

I think people would be happier if they admitted things more often. In a sense we are all prisoners of some memory, or fear, or disappointment - we are all defined by something we can’t change.

In the end I didn't know who I was crying for, but it was something my body wanted to do, as though trying to digest grief.

Anyone who is desperate or alone will agree there is comfort in routine.

Love is also a violence, and cannot be undone.

We cross from memory into imagination with only a vague awareness of change.

Sometimes I wake up and lie still enough to hear a petal drop from the vase of flowers. Sometimes I lie awake and wish there was someone to hear my falling.

He realized this early on, and realized too that what people think are their lives are merely its conditions. The truth is closer than thought and lies buried in what we already know.

I tried to convey to the boy how people’s lives are often altered by curved lines read slowly from paper, sand, or stone.

When he smiles, they mostly look away. But Martin likes to think they carry his smile for a few blocks – that even the smallest gesture is something grand.

I was afraid of the sea when I was a girl. Someone said it went on forever and that frightened me. I wondered why my parents had chosen to live at the beginning and the end of the world.

My ability is greater than my disability.

You cannot do good work if you take your mind off the work to see how the community is taking it.

Computers ought to help people find their own best path through lots of textual information.

Sometimes the best decisions in life are on the spur of the moment. So I generally try to do what I think is right. And sometimes I make mistakes.

There is not anti-semitism as an ideology. The civilized world must think that anti-semitism is stupid.

Little opportunities should be improved.

If you don't know foreign languages, you don't know anything about your own.

Over and above the political, economic, sociological, and international implications of racial prejudices, their major significance is that they place unnecessary burdens upon human beings.

I think, fundamentally, open source does tend to be more stable software. It's the right way to do things.

I realized that there was a thrilling undiscovered country to be explored in the mechanisms of the mammalian nervous system. Through it, one might approach the mystery of the mind.