Today we take it for granted that war happens in smaller, poorer and more backward countries.

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.

Reading is reading - no matter what the material.

Mary, you know I hate parties. My idea of hell is a very large party in a cold room where everybody has to play hockey properly.

best solutions will not fall intoour lap if we fail to grab the best available solutions andimprove upon them continuously.

In the late '70s, maybe just before I started, there was still an attitude that if you did film you didn't do TV and vice versa, but that's gone now.

I don't watch things like Jeepers Creepers or Final Destination 53 ½. I really like more of the psychological thrillers.

We leave traces of ourselves wherever we go, on whatever we touch.

They think we are retarded. They are retarded.

With ruin staring you in the face, there is nothing worse to live through than a siege of waiting and hoping. If you manage to live through it, nothing can ever jar your nerves after that.

The more you think of yourself as shining immortal spirit, the more eager you will be to be absolutely free of matter, body, and senses. This is the intense desire to be free.

You can have nothing to fear.