Every act of perception, is to some degree an act of creation, and every act of memory is to some degree an act of imagination.

In examining disease, we gain wisdom about anatomy and physiology and biology. In examining the person with disease, we gain wisdom about life.

Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.

The power of music to integrate and cure. . . is quite fundamental. It is the profoundest nonchemical medication.

My religion is nature. That’s what arouses those feelings of wonder and mysticism and gratitude in me.

We see with the eyes, but we see with the brain as well. And seeing with the brain is often called imagination.

People will make a life in their own terms, whether they are deaf or colorblind or autistic or whatever. And their world will be quite as rich and interesting and full as our world.

If a man has lost a leg or an eye, he knows he has lost a leg or an eye; but if he has lost a self—himself—he cannot know it, because he is no longer there to know it.

Language, that most human invention, can enable what, in principle, should not be possible. It can allow all of us, even the congenitally blind, to see with another person’s eyes.

We speak not only to tell other people what we think, but to tell ourselves what we think. Speech is a part of thought.

Much more of the brain is devoted to movement than to language. Language is only a little thing sitting on top of this huge ocean of movement.

I am thankful I was born in America, although if I gain any more weight the burqa thing may start to seem like a good idea to me. See? Another plus about America, you can always find some food.

Respect children because they're human beings and they deserve respect, and they'll grow up to be better people.

The thing about religion is that it's the first and the worst. The worst because it's the first.

When I was going through those very fast changes, I think it was terribly important to me that I was seen to be inventive. I think that was the characteristic of my work that I wanted people to see.

Even more important than what we do, then, is who we are.

You were bred for humanity and sold to society. One day you'll wake up in the present day, a million generations removed from the expectations of being who you really want to be.

If people who say they love their children meant it, would there be war? And would there be division of nationalities - would there be these separations?

The presumptuous sin of Uzzah was that He assumed his hands were less polluted than the dirt.

I have a fax machine with "fax waiting".

We must be alarmingly enterprising, and we must be startlingly original, and do new and striking things which constitute a revolution.