Even the best computer in the world has no idea that it exists. You do. No one knows what creates that ineffable awareness that we're here.

Jellyfish serve as a model for bioengineers for the same reason yeast were once so valuable to geneticists: they're simple to deconstruct.

There's no such thing as downtime for your brain.

Your parents leave you too soon and your kids and spouse come along late, but your siblings know you when you are in your most inchoate form.

Vaccines save lives; fear endangers them. It's a simple message parents need to keep hearing.

From the time we're born, our brothers and sisters are our collaborators and coconspirators, our role models and our cautionary tales.

Confidence quickly curdles into arrogance; smarts turn to smugness, charm turns to smarm.

It's not mere extremism that makes folks at the fringes so troubling; it's extremism wedded to false beliefs. Humans have long been dupes, easily gulled by rumors and flat-out lies.

There's a universe inside your head - a place of pictures and passions, of songs and sorrows. It's everything you are - and it's an utter mystery.

When we're awake, cortisol can fragment memories - one reason eyewitness crime scene accounts are so unreliable. But at night that very fragmentation allows creative recombinations of ideas.

In both children and adults, there can be a hard-to-deny link between a robust sense of hope and either work productivity or academic achievement.

I think the hardest obstacles, actually, are probably ones I've put on myself. I push myself really hard, and I think that's why I've been able to accomplish certain things.

Complexity creates confusion, simplicity focus.

Once I opened my eyes to the realities of life, I couldn't close them.

If you're playing basketball with someone who's better than you, you have to get better or else it's no fun

God has made man a cosmopolite. He created seas for ships to glide on, the wind to push them, and the stars to guide them even in darkest night.

There are so many games that I've seen that I've learned from. I never - that's also part of the same - never single out a particular player or a particular game.

Real strength entails being considerate and supportive of people's feelings.

It often happens that what stares us in the face is the most difficult to perceive.

I didn't want to start acting like a cartoon

When a storm comes, it is the trees that get uprooted. Be as humble as the grass and nothing can touch you.