A successful learner, . . . must be constrained to draw some conclusions from the input and not others.

Art works because it appeals to certain faculties of the mind. Music depends on details of the auditory system, painting and sculpture on the visual system. Poetry and literature depend on language.

Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down with political and moral and emotional baggage?

All our behaviours are a result of neurophysiological activity in the brain. There is no reason to believe there is any magic going on.

I suspect music is auditory cheesecake, an exquisite confection crafted to tickle the sensitive spots of... our mental faculties.

Evolutionary psychology is one of four sciences that are bringing human nature back into the picture.

Thanks to the redundancy of language, yxx cxn xndxrstxnd whxt x xm wrxtxng xvxn xf x rxplxcx xll thx vxwxls wxth xn "x" (t gts lttl hrdr f y dn't vn kn whr th vwls r)

Photography is a kind of virtual reality, and it helps if you can create the illusion of being in an interesting world.

Plants can't very well defend themselves by their behavior, so they resort to chemical warfare, and plants are saturated with toxins and irritants to deter creatures like us who want to eat them.

I would argue that nothing gives life more purpose than the realization that every moment of consciousness is a precious and fragile gift.

Babies are born with the instinct to speak, the way spiders are born with the instinct to spin webs. You don't need to train babies to speak; they just do. But reading is different.

Do you not think that God will protect us?”“No, ” he said flatly. “My experience is that He rarely attends to the obvious.

The road is long if one proceeds by way of precepts but short and effectual if by way of personal example.

Be careful who you trust, the devil was once an angel.

None of my costume designers have ever been nominated for an Oscar 'cause I don't do period movies that have ball scenes with a hundred extras in them.

(You wouldn't believe how many people will hang up a picture of an electric chair? especially if it matches the color of their curtains.

Love grows by not giving to us. And if our passion for poetry lives on and persists, it is because poetry offers us only its bits of lint.

Everyday we just copy&paste ourselves from the previous day instead of creating a new blank page and be something different and original.

[T]hat is the true function of meditation: to create a space in you where you can be rich, infinitely rich, utterly peaceful, absolutely ecstatic.

Chemistry is a hard thing. I don't think you can force it, and it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to have great chemistry outside of work. It's just something that sparks on screen or doesn't.

I like a friend the better for having faults that one can talk about.