That wouldn’t be maturity; it would be letting an expert system make your decisions for you. Maturity means seeing the differences, but realizing the… - Ted Chiang

"Forgive and forget" goes the expression, and for our idealized magnanimous selves, that was all you needed. But for our actual selves the relationship between those two actions wasn’t so straightforward. In most cases we had to forget a little bit before we could forgive; when we no longer experienced the pain as fresh, the insult was easier to forgive, which in turn made it less memorable, and so on.

The universe was a language with a perfectly ambiguous grammar. Every physical event was an utterance that could be parsed in two entirely different ways, one causal and the other teleological.

What made it possible for me to exercise freedom of choice also made it impossible to know the future. Conversely, now that I know the future, I would never act contrary to that future. [...] Those who've read the Book of Ages never admit to it.