David Orr:

The speaker will be claiming "ages and ages hence" that his decision made "all the difference" only because this is the kind of claim we make when we want to comfort or blame ourselves by assuming that our current position is the product of our own choices (as opposed to what was chosen for us or allotted to us by chance). The poem isn't a salute to can-do individualism; it's a commentary on the self-deception we practice when constructing the story of our own lives.

Leslie Jamison:

Every paradise is made possible by blindness.

Richard Feynman:

I feel a responsibility as a scientist who knows the great value of a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, and the progress made possible by such a philosophy, progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought. I feel a responsibility to proclaim the value of this freedom and to teach that doubt is not to be feared, but that it is to be welcomed as the possibility of a new potential for human beings.

Liel Leibovitz:

The designer through the game, teaches us that the true joy is the joy of learning, of our own free will, to love the game and the designer above all, to abandon all other ways of being in the world, all other claims on subjectivity or agency, and instead embrace the true happiness that comes with understanding one's place in the world.

Julian Schnabel:

Being in the water alone, surfing, sharpens a particular kind of concentration, an ability to agree with the ocean, to react with a force that is larger than you are.

Decius:

I've gotten old enough that I now understand why adults seek to escape reality.