Gregory Benford

Quantum uncertainty, chaos—these forever screen precise knowledge of the future from our eyes.

Uncompromising zeal doesn’t look in the mirror much.

You need friends to keep you on your feet, and enemies to keep you on your toes.

Nature’s nature was change. It was not a museum.

“How can you shrug off history?”…

“By studied neglect.”

Propaganda of sufficient age became art.

Individual recollections of the past are easily shaped by others. After a while they need have little bearing on the once-lived events.

Evolution was still at work, pruning the failures from the gene pool with unblinking patience.

When you know nothing, you are free to hope.

Weeds sprouted in spaces where once-important people had proclaimed that their presumptions were imperishable.

Definitions, her grandmother once said, had to be like a fat man’s belt—big enough to cover the subject but elastic enough to allow for change.

But then, growing up was not supposed to be easy. One Mom remarked offhandedly, “It’s the toughest work you’ll ever do.”