I'm adding this to my list of favorite quotes. It's about the birth of this universe.

According to the standard Big Bang model, the universe was born during a period of inflation that began about 13.8 billion years ago. Like a rapidly expanding balloon, it swelled from a size smaller than an electron to nearly its current size within a tiny fraction of a second.

Initially, the universe was permeated only by energy. Some of this energy congealed into particles, which assembled into light atoms like hydrogen and helium. These atoms clumped first into galaxies, then stars, inside whose fiery furnaces all the other elements were forged. We don’t know what happened before that. There’s nothing wrong with not knowing.

-- Solange