“Newton gave us answers. Hawking gave us questions. And Hawkings question themselves keep on giving, generating breakthroughs decades later. When ultimately we master the quantum gravity laws, and comprehend fully the birth of our universe, it may largely be by standing on the shoulders of Hawking. “
And all the woe that moved him so
That he gave that bitter cry,
And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,
None knew so well as I:
For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die.
In becoming forcibly and essentially aware of my mortality, and of what I wished and wanted for my life, however short it might be, priorities and omissions became strongly etched in a merciless light, and what I most regretted were my silences. Of what had I *ever* been afraid? To question or to speak as I believed could have meant pain, or death. But we all hurt in so many different ways, all the time, and pain will either change, or end. Death, on the other hand, is the final silence. And that might be coming quickly, now, without regard for whether I had ever spoken what needed to be said, or had only betrayed myself into small silences, while I planned someday to speak, or waited for someone else's words. And I began to recognize a source of power within myself that comes from the knowledge that while it is most desirable not to be afraid, learning to put fear into a perspective gave me great strength.
I was going to die, if not sooner then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you. But for every real word spoken, for every attempt I had ever made to speak those truths for which I am still seeking, I had ever made contact with other women while we examined the words to fit a world in which we all believed, bridging our differences. And it was the concern and caring of all those women which gave me strength and enabled me to scrutinize the essentials of my living.
Sayfa 13 - Penguin Modern ClassicsKitabı okudu
He took out his single cigarette and lighted it. It gave him no pleasure to smoke, walking fast; it was a mere reckless gesture.
Sayfa 83 - LiterartKitabı okudu
"The Gallifreyans eventually made a wonderful world for themselves, with towers and cities, lords and ladies. The inventor watched ovr them and advised them on how best to make their world as civilised and law-abiding as the England that he'd left behind.
But as time went on, he became discontented with the place. The Gallifreyans had taken his ideas far too much to heart, and they'd become boring and stuck-in-the-mud. He invented a way for them to start another life when they died, and gave them another heart, hoping that this would make them joyful and happy. But they were just as dull, and now they lived longer. Worse than that, they no longer had children, so there was nobody noisy around the place to ask questions. Finally, he could take no more of it. He took one of the police boxes and headed back to the Earth. The Gallifreyans would chase him, he knew, because he'd broken one of the laws that he'd invented.
But he'd decided that being free was better than being in charge."
Sayfa 87Kitabı okudu
The switch from “w” to “f” came with the Romans, who copied the Etruscan alphabet shortly before 600 B.C. The Romans made adjustments on letter number 6: They assigned the “w” sound to their letter U as a secondary job, and, thus enabled, they gave the F-shape letter a brand-new sound—the strong Latin fricative not adequately represented among the Etruscan letters, the sound “f.”
