Apparently, when people travel between dimensions, their physical forms are "no longer observable," which is a quantum mechanics thing, and explaining it involves this whole story about a cat that's in a box and is simultaneously alive and dead until you open the box, and it gets seriously complicated. Never ask a physicist about that cat.

I literally cannot remember a time when I was not asking myself what events in 'Star Wars' were like for Princess Leia. The good side of all this is that what looked like 'goofing off' or 'daydreaming' these many years has all turned out to be valuable career preparation.

I feel bound to mention that lots of universes also have wars, and yet we are the Warverse. Sophie and I also teach at Cambridge in many quantum realities, but there is only one Cambridgeverse. And while absolutely every dimension discovered so far has an ocean, we have nonetheless designated an Oceanverse. In other words, my darling girl, the names are all sort of arbitrary and rubbish and it’s not worth making a fuss over, is it?

I’m forcing us both to confront the fact that one of our most beautiful dreams was a lie. We both believed in destiny as a kind of guarantee—a promise from the cosmos that we would have our time together in virtually every world we shared. But now I see that believing only in destiny means giving up responsibility. We fooled ourselves into thinking happiness was a gift we would be given time and time again. It’s so much scarier to admit that our lives are in our own flawed, fallible hands. Our futures are not kept safe for us in the cradle of fate. We have to hack them out of stone, dig them out of mud, and build them one messy, imperfect day at a time.

Tell me why.” My voice shook. “Tell me right now.

I see... the way you're always searching. How much you hate anything fake or phony. How you're older than your years, but still... playful, like a little girl. How you're always looking into people, or wondering what they see when they look back at you. Your eyes. It's all in the eyes.