“We shouldn't let our envy of distinguished masters of the arts distract us from the wonder of how each of us gets new ideas. Perhaps we hold on to our superstitions about creativity in order to mak...”

“General fiction is pretty much about ways that people get into problems and screw their lives up. Science fiction is about everything else.”

“Kubrick's vision seemed to be that humans are doomed, whereas Clarke's is that humans are moving on to a better stage of evolution.”

“When David Marr at MIT moved into computer vision, he generated a lot of excitement, but he hit up against the problem of knowledge representation; he had no good representations for knowledge in h...”

“Societies need rules that make no sense for individuals. For example, it makes no difference whether a single car drives on the left or on the right. But it makes all the difference when there are ...”

“You don't understand anything until you learn it more than one way.”

“If I paint a wild horse, you might not see the horse... but surely you will see the wildness!”

“He who looks through an open window sees fewer things than he who looks through a closed window.”

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight and no vision.”

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

“It's the fricking reality that destroys plans.”

“An exceedingly well-informed report,' said the General. 'You have given yourself the trouble to go into matters thoroughly, I see. That is one of the secrets of success in life.”

“Whenever you don't know someone and you overhear their problems they always sound so trivial.”

“Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.”

“There are always answers. We just have to be smart enough.”