The true human being ... is the meaning of the universe. He is a dancing star. He is the exploding singularity pregnant with infinite possibilities. - David Zindell

The elite of the universal religions have always substituted belief in the Infinite for the experience of it. We all need God — but only in small and measured doses. Who can look upon the burning bush and not be destroyed in its flames? Who can bear the heaven and hell of each moment blazing in time? Who can shine like a star? And so, for all but a few of the manswarm, the rare ones who are truly human, it is better to glimpse such a miracle through a dark glass or to grasp it through words only.

What's beautiful is that a creator can be astonished by his own creations.

For us humanity was a distant goal toward which all men were moving, whose image no one knew, whose laws were nowhere written down.