GOOD MORNING," said the little prince. "Good Morning," said the salesclerk. This was a salesclerk who sold pills invented to quench thirst. Swallow one a week and you no longer feel any need to drink. "Why do you sell these pills?" "They save so much...
Since only a narrow range of the allowed values for, say, the fine structure constant will permit observers to exist in the Universe, we must find ourselves in the narrow range of possibilities which permit them, no matter how improbable they are. We...
Realizing its fundamental importance in understanding spectral lines, in atomic physics and in the theory of how light and electrons interact, quantum electrodynamics, Pauli and Heisenberg were determined to derive it from quantum theory rather than ...
If a book were written all in numbers, it would be true. It would be just. Nothing said in words ever came out quite even. Things in words got twisted and ran together, instead of staying straight and fitting together. But underneath the words, at th...
He needed the people and the clamour around him. There was no questions and no doubts when he stood on a platform over a sea of faces; the air was heavy, compact, saturated with a single solvent-admiration; there was no room for anything else. He was...
Images flicker, each one bringing its own sorrow or its own smile. Sometimes both. At the very worst, an impenetrable and sightless black and at best, a happiness so bright that it hurts the eyes to see, coming and going on some unseen projector perp...
She takes another sip of her drink. She looks around the bar. I look at the fine muscles in her neck, at the two points of her clavicle. Her grief has not so much changed her as stripped her down, stripped her body and her face. Maybe she should do w...
He wanted to break me, the me I'd made, the me I'd needed to make, my need, mine, my whole life since I could remember. I didn't want to hear him that night. When I was ready to change I'd change. When life opens up before you, when you don't really ...
There's a scientific hypothesis that every person's name is a primary suggestive command that contains the entire script of their life in highly concentrated form. . . . According to this point of view, there is only a limited number of names, becaus...
[...] during one train stop, I watched as another guard with a spirit of empathy, ran out into an apple orchard and picked apples. He carried his jacket like a bag and filled it with apples. The kind German came to our open train window and handed us...
One question that especially intrigues me is exactly when humpbacks started coming to Hawaii and why. In artwork and oral histories of ancient Hawaiians there is no record of humpback whales being there, and there is no evidence that humpbacks were t...
At the very best, a mind enclosed in language is in prison. It is limited to the number of relations which words can make simultaneously present to it; and remains in ignorance of thoughts which involve the combination of a greater number. These thou...
One keeps looking out for innovation in IPL, but of late it hasn't been all that obvious. Lionel Richie as an opening act? Johnny Mathis must have been busy. Matthew Hayden's Mongoose? Looks a bit like Bob Willis' bat with the "flow-through holes"; S...
Mrs. Robinson: Benjamin. Benjamin: Yes? Mrs. Robinson: Isn't there something you want to tell me? Benjamin: Tell you? Mrs. Robinson: Yes. Benjamin: Well, I want you to know how much I appreciate this. Really. Mrs. Robinson: The number. Benjamin: What...
The Rabbi: The unlucky are nothing more than a frame of reference for the lucky. You are unlucky, so I may know that I am not. Unfortunately the lucky never realizes they are lucky until it's too late. Take yourself for instance; yesterday you were b...
Slevin: How do you justify being a rabbi... and a gangster? The Rabbi: I don't. I'm a bad man who doesn't waste time wondering what could've been when I am what could've been and what could not have been. I live on both sides of the fence. My grass i...
Slevin: This isn't the first time this has happened, you know. Lindsey: You mean this isn't the first time a crime lord asked you to kill the gay son of a rival gangster to pay off a debt that belongs to a friend whose place you're staying in as a re...
Mr. Goodkat: [his first lines] There was a time. Nick: [groggily looks at his watch] 4:35. Mr. Goodkat: You misunderstood. I wasn't asking for the time, I was just saying... there was a time. Nick: There was a time? Mr. Goodkat: Mmm-hmm. Take Brown S...
Lindsey: We are dealing with a bona fide case of mistaken identity here. Slevin: Yeah. Lindsey: Things like that aren't supposed to be real. It's like amnesia. Lindsey: Not withstanding, here you are and Nick's nowhere to be found, so... I'd say you'...
Mrs. Iselin: [at meal time] I'm sorry, hon'. Would it really make it easier for you if we settled on just one number? Sen. John Yerkes Iselin: Yeah. Just one, real, simple number that'd be easy for me to remember. [Mrs. Iselin watches her husband thu...
Lou Bloom: I'm promoting you to executive Vice President of video news. Rick: What am I now? Lou Bloom: You're an assistant. Rick: Does it come with a raise? Lou Bloom: Absolutely. Rick: How much? Lou Bloom: Pick a number, you pick a number. Rick: Hu...
