But then I remembered: the universe was closed, and so very small. There was really nowhere else to go.

There's no such things as survival of the fittest. Survival of the most adequate, maybe. It doesn't matter whether a solution's optimal. All that matters is whether it beats the alternative.

The most altruistic and sustainable philosophies fail before the brute brain stem imperative of self-interest.

But when the flash flood crosses your path, when the lion leaps at you from the grasses, advanced self-awareness is an unaffordable indulgence. The brain stem does its best.

Radar is too long in the tooth for fine detail.

If the rest of your brain were conscious, it would probably regard you as the pointy-haired boss from Dilbert

What's the survival value of obsessing on a sunset?

Property damage is so much easier to live with than murder.

Brains are survival engines, not truth detectors.

After four thousand years we can’t even prove that reality exists beyond the mind of the first-person dreamer.

You can’t turn a sunset into a string of grunts without losing something.

Whew! You two are blowing hotter air than a tornado circlin’ a volcano in Hades.

Money-makers are tiresome company, as they have no standard but cash value.

Your life and everything about your world should be represented on your social media accounts, and everybody feels that way from family to friends to boyfriends and girlfriends.

You must feel what you're singing, not just have a good presentation of the language.

Disease is a disturbed condition, not a thing or entity.

Use your faults, use your defects; then you're going to be a star.

Pain is always preferable to numbness.

The possession of gold has ruined fewer men than the lack of it. What noble enterprises have been checked and what fine souls have been blighted in the gloom of poverty the world will never know.

It is a disturbing conundrum that true free will cannot exist without the possibility of suicide. Then again, it ain't over 'til it's over!