For a long time, including the day I met Emily, I believed that decent people did not wish to cause suffering. This I now know not to be true.

Knowing how things are doesn’t make you see them correctly, doesn’t stop you from seeing things incorrectly. Stare at the image as much as you like, it’s all in vain. It will never surrender the truth, not to your naked eyes; you have to go in armed with a straightedge.

In his notebooks is this note: In order to catch even a fleeting glimpse of the world, we must break with our familiar acceptance of it. Is such a goal beyond our ability, beyond mine?

Sometimes, when properly regarded, the problem in front of us is understood to be no problem at all, or at least not of the kind we believe it to be.

I am reminded of what Einstein said on the death of his friend: He has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubborn illusion.