We too through lack of knowledge and of sufficiently mature reflection mistook the visible outward appearance of the phenomenon for the phenomenon itself.

To-day it appears as though it may well be altogether abolished in the future as it has to some extent been mitigated in the past by the unceasing and as it now appears unlimited ascent of man to knowledge and through knowledge to physical power and dominion over Nature.

And I pray thee loving Jesus that as Thou hast graciously given me to drink in with delight the words of Thy knowledge so Thou wouldst mercifully grant me to attain one day to Thee the fountain of all wisdom and to appear forever before Thy face.

Despite our very recent appearance on the planet humanity combines arrogance with increasing material demands even as we become more numerous. Our toughness is a delusion. Have we the intelligence and discipline to vigilantly guard against our tendency to grow without limit?

When a true genius appears you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.

The Polar Express is about faith and the power of imagination to sustain faith. It's also about the desire to reside in a world where magic can happen the kind of world we all believed in as children but one that disappears as we grow older.

Now it is quite clear to me that there are no solid spheres in the heavens and those that have been devised by the authors to save the appearances exist only in the imagination.

I have deliberately left Sylvester and Julia's appearances to the reader's imagination.

Ultimately so much Dr. Seuss is about empowerment. He invites us to disappear into our imagination and then blows the doors off what that can mean.

I still have a photo on my wall of the greatest idol I will ever have in my life and it's myself at eight. Because that's when the forces of imagination have the same value as the real world when they're an instrument of survival: when my mother disappeared and I imagined a mother. That was me at my best.