We will never have a perfect world, but it’s not romantic or naïve to work toward a better one.

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.

Don't call anyone a devil, because within you, you can experience hell and the devil, and the devil is nothing, but you!

I never wanted to be safe... I wanted to be good.

A regular meditation practice is one of the highest forms of self-love.

Truth was not meant to be told but found

I care not a man can die but once we owe God a death.

I find fame to be quite unnatural. Humans are not built for extreme adoration.

I did such a gigantic eye roll I almost fell over.

I'm still a nobody, when am I not going to be a nobody?

The journeythe journey, I promise you, is the greatest thing ever. The destination always takes care of itself.

The earliest form in which romances appear is that of a rude kind of verse.