“Do I dare disturb the universe”
The Sun is Also a Star“Do I dare disturb the universe?” is an epigraph from T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Placed at the book’s opening, it frames the question of whether a decision can unsettle a life against the vastness of the universe—and beside the possibility that, in a minute, a decision may be revised or reversed.
Source and Form
The line appears alongside another epigraph, Carl Sagan’s observation that understanding a sunset need not diminish its romance. Eliot’s question shifts the opening from contemplation toward action: the following lines in the epigraph turn to the time available for decisions and revisions, while emphasizing how quickly those choices may change.
Function in the Opening
The question establishes a tension between the immense scale of the cosmos and an individual’s capacity to act within it. The opening then develops the cosmic scale through Sagan’s account of what it would take to make an apple pie from scratch, beginning with the Big Bang and tracing the conditions that lead to human life and art. In that context, Eliot’s question serves as a threshold: it invites attention to the consequences of choice without declaring whether any choice can truly disturb the universe.
