Brian Andreas Quotations

If you're talking to a child, you're going, 'This is the wonder of science and here's why I'm so fascinated by it.'

There really is only one story that you need to tell as a scientist or a technologist. It's Prometheus stealing fire. That's it. That's what we do as scientists or technologists.

I sometimes wake in the early morning & listen to the soft breathing of my children & I think to myself, this is one thing I will never regret & I carry that quiet with me all day long.

I read once that the ancient Egyptians had fifty words for sand & the Eskimos had a hundred words for snow. I wish I had a thousand words for love, but all that comes to mind is the way you move against me while you sleep & there are no words for that.

Anyone can slay a dragon, he told me, but try waking up every morning and loving the world all over again. That's what takes a real hero.

Time stands still best in moments that look suspiciously like ordinary life.

There are days I drop words of comfort on myself like falling leaves and remember that it is enough to be taken care of by myself.

In those days, we finally chose to walk like giants and hold the world in arms grown strong with love And there may be many things we forget in the days to come, But this will not be one of them.

There is nothing more I ask of this life than this moment, exactly so. And suddenly forever seems like too short a time.

I once had a garden filled with flowers that grew only on dark thoughts, but they needed constant attention and one day I decided I had better things to do.

Everything changed the day she figured out there was exactly enough time for the important things in her life.

If you hold on to the handle, it's easier to maintain the illusion of control. But it's more fun if you just let the wind carry you.

Most people don't know there are angels whose only job is to make sure you don't get too comfortable & fall asleep & miss your life.

He loved her for almost everything she was & she decided that was enough to let him stay for a very long time.

I was never good at hide and seek because I'd always make enough noise so my friends would be sure to find me. I don't have anyone to play those games with any more, but now and then I make enough noise just in case someone is still looking and hasn't found me yet.

She said she usually cried at least once each day not because she was sad, but because the world was so beautiful and life was so short.

I've always like the time before dawn because there's no one around to remind me who I'm supposed to be, so it's easier to remember who I am.

We lay there and looked up at the night sky and she told me about stars called blue squares and red swirls and I told her I'd never heard of them. Of course not, she said, the really important stuff they never tell you. You have to imagine it on your own.

If there is any secret to this life I live, this is it: the sound of what cannot be seen sings within everything that can & there is nothing more to it than that.

The first time her laughter unfurled its wings in the wind, we knew that the world would never be the same

There are lives I can imagine without children but none of them have the same laughter & noise.

Falling into Place: deciding everything is falling into place perfectly as long as you don't get too picky about what you mean by place. Or perfectly.

The birds brought seeds & flowers & bits of brightly colored string & placed them in her hair while she slept so she would remember the wild joy of spring when she finally awoke.

You're the strangest person I ever met, she said & I said you too & we decided we'd know each other a long time.

My grandma used to plant tomato seedlings in tin cans from tomato sauce & puree & crushed tomatoes she got from the Italian restaurant by her house, but she always soaked the labels off first. I don't want them to be anxious about the future, she said. It's not healthy.

I used to believe my father about everything but then I had children myself & now I see how much stuff you make up just to keep yourself from going crazy.

I like geography best, he said, because your mountains & rivers know the secret. Pay no attention to boundaries.

There are things you do because they feel right and they may make no sense and they may make no money and it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other and to eat each other's cooking and say it was good.

There came a moment in the middle of the song when he suddenly felt every heartbeat in the room & after that he never forgot that he was part of something much bigger

If you're right & I'm not, I'm going to be hell to live with, she said. So, you better think about that next time you want to be right.

Wanting him to come back before anyone notices part of the world has not moved since he left.

These are little packets of light and you need to plant them early in the year and remember to mark where they were because lots of times they look like weeds in the beginning and it's not until later that you see how beautiful they really are.

There has never been a day when I have not been proud of you, I said to my Son though some days I'm louder about other stuff so it's easy to miss that.

I am only strong enough for a life of partial virtue.

There are some days when no matter what I say it feels like I'm far away in another country & whoever is doing the translating has had far too much to drink.

I don't blame you for everything, she told me. Just the stuff my friends & I can agree on.

I've read a lot of books, so I know bunches of stuff that sounds like it could be true.

Opening a door to the mysteries, hoping to shed a little dark on all the stuff we think we know.

I hope someday you see this is all life wants: for you to be your own kind of beautiful & not the kind that makes you forget who you are.

You may not remember the time you let me go first. Or the time you dropped back to tell me it wasn't that far to go. Or the time you waited at the crossroads for me to catch up. You may not remember any of those, but I do and this is what I have to say to you: Today, no matter what it takes, we ride home together.

The clock is a conspiracy & a crime against humanity and I would not own one except I miss appointments without it.

The most important thing you leave behind is the stuff that turns into treasures when children find it

Wrapped around my son with only the knowledge of the words of the world & a quiet remembrance of watching before this all began.

We went to a church that had missionaries who'd come back once a year from Fiji & give talks. I remember one of them saying it was very hard work telling people they were going to lose their everlasting souls if they didn't shape up. I pictured people sitting on the beach listening to this sweaty man all dressed in black telling them they were going to burn in hell & them thinking this was good fun, these scary stories this guy was telling them & afterwards, they'd all go home & eat mango & fish & they'd play Monopoly & laugh & laugh & they'd go to bed & wake up the next day & do it all again.

Trying to follow in the footsteps of the masters, but it's a lot harder than it looks because even though they had the same size feet as us, they weren't looking down the whole time while they walked to make sure they were doing it right

Empty Spaces:After his father died he carried his life more gently & left an empty space for the birds & other creatures.

In my dream the angel shrugged and said, if we fail this time, it will be a failure of imagination. And then she placed the world gently in the palm of my hand.

When you start to crack open, don’t waste a moment gathering your old self up into something like you knew before. Let your new self splash like sunlight into every dark place and laugh and cry and make sounds you never made & thank all that is holy for the gift....

You're not going to see people like this again for a long time, he said and I said I always saw people like this & he looked at me for a moment and said, You're not from around here, are you?