“I regard physics as that subset of magic that works fairly reliably.”

“I don’t want to color my facts with my suppositions,” he said. “My facts are the results of good, reliable magic. My suppositions are just that—suppositions—and may be totally wrong.”

“There is nothing special in the world. nothing magic. just physics.”

“Is he all scarred now?”

“Magic gets rid of most physical scars, but I like to think I scarred him emotionally.”

“[About Ada] For none of the evidence we have so far can inspire confidence that this language has avoided any of the problems that have afflicted other complex language projects of the past. […] It is not too late! I believe that by careful pruning of the ADA language, it is still possible to select a very powerful subset that would be reliable and efficient in implementation and safe and economic in use.”

“Poetry is a subset of a Cosmos, which in itself, is a poem.”

“Sorcery works against Nature, magic works with it.”

“I spent a couple of years between eleven and thirteen analysing the social evaluations that were taken for granted, also acquiring a thorough scepticism about processes regarded as causal, and the consistency of the physical world, as well as the reliability of my own mental processes. By the time I was thirteen I was running out of things to think about, so starting on a run of exam-taking seemed all the more appropriate, as I was finding it difficult to make use of spare time.”

“Leaving behind the babble of the plaza, I enter the Library. I feel, almost physically, the gravitation of the books, the enveloping serenity of order, time magically dessicated and preserved.”

“The history of mathematics is important also as a valuable contribution to the history of civilization. Human progress is closely identified with scientific thought. Mathematical and physical researches are a reliable record of intellectual progress.”