"“Lynchings in the past have significantly shaped race relations in the present. A killing such as George Floyd’s lands on black people with a much heavier psychological weight because of lynching’s legacy. Too many white people fail to recognize this, and that needs to change. The hurt is too great, the simmering fear and anger too volatile, to bury forever. All Americans who would seek or demand a nation that is fairer to every citizen, less racist, and more peaceful have a responsibility to know this history in detail. … Confronting this ugliness would be difficult for everyone, of course, but it should be attempted. Ignorance and denial certainly have not worked, because this American wound still bleeds."

““Find joy in existence. We live in good times. Now is somewhere between the beginning and the end of everything. . . . Collectively and individually, we must never stop exploring, imagining, experimenting, learning, and solving problems. This should not be difficult for any of us, because it is only human to do these things. This is who we are. It was the way of those remarkable Africans not so long ago in prehistory, and it can be your way now. The closer you look, the more you will see. The more you learn, the more alive and awake you will become.”

““When we transitioned to a species that relies so heavily on cognitive abilities, we became the most powerful and profoundly weird creatures of all time. Right now, more than 7.6 billion people carry inside their heads a three-pound blob of magic, an electrochemical storm of genius and creative madness that is unprecedented and unsurpassed in this planet’s 4.5 billion years of natural history. This is who humans became long ago, and this is who you are now. You are one more unique link in a long, living chain of fantastic inventiveness and brilliant imagination.”

““It’s the 21st century and still we have no universally agreed upon definition of life. It seems the universe does not care about our desire for tidy categories and tight descriptions. Our intellectual comfort is irrelevant to reality. When it comes to life, gray zones and blurry boundaries abound. This is bizarre considering life has been on our planet for more than 3.5 billion years and it’s all around us now. Life saturates Earth’s surface zone, from more than a mile deep in the crust to the stratosphere miles above. Its diversity and overall success are staggering, difficult to comprehend. For example, some scientists estimate that there are more than one trillion species alive right now. In total, Earth may have hosted more than 100 trillion species so far. Life is no stranger to us. And yet, what is it?”

“Author quotes on Goodreads”

““In attempting to know, we engage in grand and meaningful acts. We use our human brains as time machines, to see and learn from the distant past and to travel forward thousands, millions, and billions of years. This young, patchwork organ that evolved to help ancient primates find food and water, maintain group relationships, achieve sexual intercourse, and imagine the next best tool now carries us to the very ends of the universe and beyond.”

““We have magnificent brains—and use them to believe nonsense and behave as fools. . . . We are enslaved to delusions and too often the servants of subconscious biases. . . . Our great challenge is to use our brains to overcome our brains.”