The Myth of Sisyphus
Excerpt: "The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
Lit posts
Literature on science, theology, self-help, fiction, and philosophy that I enjoyed reading.2024
How Do You Live?
Excerpt: "Three of them lay there quietly for a while. They already felt close enough that there was no need to speak. How nice it was just to lie there in silence."
Meditations
Excerpt: "Have you reason? I have. Why don’t you use it? When it performs its proper office, what more do you require?"
2023
Crime and Punishment
Excerpt: "Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth."
2022
Animal Farm
Excerpt: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
Digital Image Processing
Excerpt: "When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing."
2020
Introduction to Algorithms
Excerpt: "Before there were computers, there were algorithms. But now that there are computers, there are even more algorithms, and algorithms lie at the heart of computing."
2019
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
Excerpt: "To stand up straight with your shoulders back is to accept the terrible responsibility of life, with eyes wide open. It means deciding to voluntarily transform the chaos of potential into the realities of habitable order. It means adopting the burden of self-conscious vulnerability, and accepting the end of the unconscious paradise of childhood, where finitude and mortality are only dimly comprehended. It means willingly undertaking the sacrifices necessary to generate a productive and meaningful reality."
2018
Welcome to the Universe
Excerpt: "As a scientist, you must embrace the inconstancy of knowledge."
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
Excerpt: "We do not simply live in this universe. The universe lives within us."
2017
A Brief History of Time
Excerpt: "We find ourselves in a bewildering world. We want to make sense of what we see around us and to ask: What is the nature of the universe? What is our place in it and where did it and we come from? Why is it the way it is?"
2016
The Kite Runner
Excerpt: "For you a thousand times over!"
2012
The Last of the Mohicans
Excerpt: "When a man consorts much with a people, if they are honest, and he no knave, love will grow up atwixt them."
2008
The Little Match Girl
Excerpt: "She took the little girl in her arms, and both of them flew in brightness and joy above the earth, very, very high, and up there was neither cold, nor hunger, nor fear—they were with God."
Oliver Twist
Excerpt: "There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts."
2007
Treasure Island
Excerpt: "Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest— Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest— Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"
2006
Bicycle Magic and Other Stories
Excerpt: "If you're dealing with clever people you've got to be clever yourself."