Sara Seager > Quotes

“But when you lose someone, you don’t lose them all at once, and their dying doesn’t stop with their death. You lose them a thousand times in a thousand ways. You say a thousand goodbyes. You hold a thousand funerals.”
― Sara Seager, The Smallest Lights in the Universe: A Memoir

“I don’t think it’s an accident that there’s a mirror at the heart of every large telescope. If we want to find another Earth, that means we want to find another us. We think we’re worth knowing. We want to be a light in somebody else’s sky. And so long as we keep looking for each other, we will never be alone.”
― Sara Seager, The Smallest Lights in the Universe: A Memoir

“There have been lessons I have chosen not to teach. Not all knowledge is power; not all things are worth knowing.”
― Sara Seager, The Smallest Lights in the Universe: A Memoir

“Maybe the best thing about MIT is that no matter how crazy your idea, nobody says it’s not going to work until it’s proved unworkable.”
― Sara Seager, The Smallest Lights in the Universe: A Memoir

“Cecilia’s spectral nature surprised me. I have always felt connected to animals. I think it’s because, unlike people, they are easy for me to read. Their needs are finite, physical as often as emotional, and I know how to meet them. Animals don’t get puzzled or angry when I say the wrong thing. They have short memories. They don’t cast judgments or see weakness in difference. They don’t take my energy and concentration; they give those precious things to me. Animals are blind to everything but love. Animals forgive.”
― Sara Seager, The Smallest Lights in the Universe: A Memoir

“When you’re in the ugly throes of grief, most people are repulsed by you. Nobody knows what to say or how to behave in your presence. Everybody’s scared of what you represent, and in a way, I suppose, you learn to want them to be. The distance that people keep is a sign of respect: Your grief warrants a wide berth. You come to crave the ability to influence the movements of others, your sorrow a superpower, your sadness your most extraordinary trait. You come to crave the space.”
― Sara Seager, The Smallest Lights in the Universe: A Memoir

“When someone you love dies, you don’t leave them. They leave you. Your love gets stuck, lost in translation between this world and the next: You’re constantly giving your heart to someone who isn’t there to receive it, and at the expense of someone who is.”
― Sara Seager, The Smallest Lights in the Universe: A Memoir

“The universe might be infinite, but our appetites for exploring it are finite, and so are our resources. Time is the most precious resource of all.”
― Sara Seager, The Smallest Lights in the Universe: A Memoir