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For Einstein, as for most people, a belief in something larger than himself became a defining sentiment. It produced in him an admixture of confidence and humility that was leavened by a sweet simplicity. Given his proclivity toward being self-centered, these were welcome graces. Along with his humor and self-awareness, they helped him to avoid the pretense and pomposity that could have afflicted the most famous mind in the world.

His religious feelings of awe and humidity also informed his sense of social justice. It impelled him to cringe at trappings of hierarchy or class distinction, to eschew excess consumption and materialism, and to dedicate himself to efforts on behalf of refugees and the oppressed.

The activity of rooting for baseball and other sports teams is one of the strongest expressions of community remaining in our society.

You don’t win by getting through all your life not having done anything.

It is true that I described antisocial, parsimonious, sanctimonious, and wasteful behavior by the owners over the years, but baseball's problem is structural, not individual. Put any individual into a position of power with an opportunity to make tens of millions of dollars in an industry that is on a cultural pedestal and protected from all forms of competition, and the odds are against the second coming of Lee Iacocca or Ralph Nader.

Empires of conquest don’t last, Administrator Perry. They hollow out from within, from the greed of rulers and the endless appetite for war.

“Every creature has fear,” Jared said. “Even the non-conscious ones.”

“No,” Boutin said. “Every creature has a survival instinct. It looks like fear but it’s not the same thing. Fear isn’t the desire to avoid death or pain. Fear is rooted in the knowledge that what you recognize as yourself can cease to exist. Fear is existential.

Imagine if every species named itself after its greatest flaw. We could name our species arrogance.

I guess I was just hoping there might be a way to do things other than the way that ends up with everyone getting killed.

Sometimes I don’t know if my life is complicated, or if it’s that I just think too much about things.

When you’re a kid, a rural, agriculturally-based colony town is a lot of fun to grow up in. It’s life on a farm, with goats and chickens and fields of wheat and sorghum, harvest celebrations and winter festivals. There’s not an eight- or nine-year-old kid who’s been invented who doesn’t find all of that unspeakably fun. But then you become a teenager and you start thinking about everything you might possibly want to do with your life, and you look at the options available to you. And then all farms, goats and chickens—and all the same people you’ve known all your life and will know all your life—begin to look a little less than optimal for a total life experience. It’s all the same, of course. That’s the point. It’s you who’s changed.

“I don’t think it would actually make you happier to be told you were right about this,” he said finally.

“I don’t want to be happy,” Dahl said. “I just want to know.”

Teenagers can be idiotic and stupid, but teenagers also model their behavior from the signals they get from adults.