Writers acquire their technique by spotting, savoring, and reverse-engineering examples of good prose.

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.

What lies beyond the wormhole ... is the devil incarnate.

Listening over and over to the voices through a family of instruments allowed us to recognize and appreciate the dignity and uniqueness of each living thing in the meadow and forest.

I'm not really an impersonator.

To give alms is nothing unless you give thought also.

What a miserable world!--trouble if we love, and trouble if we do not love.

Is there any real purpose in being alive if all we are going to do is get up every day and live only for ourselves? Live your life to help others. Give & live selflessly.

You have to eat oatmeal or you'll dry up. Anybody knows that.

What I was interested in [Fruitvale Station ] was one guy and his life and how that related to all of our lives and the fact that it ended unnecessarily and what the fallout from that was.

I got a hotel room at New York New York in Las Vegas and I was very happy. They've got that rollercoaster encircling the entire premises, just like Manhattan.

We can't always control what happens but we can control our response