“Superstition is the need to view the world in terms of simple cause and effect. As I have already said, religious fundamentalism was on the rise, but that is not the type of superstition I am refer...”

“I didn't study science beyond high school level, but I'd been reading a lot of science books by people like Richard Dawkins, Matt Ridley and Daniel Dennett. I also spent a year working on a fellows...”

“Science is a little bit more than a wonderful way of modelling and predicting it's a wonderful technical abstraction. I think science is a really wonderful technical abstraction. ”

“Human spirit is the ability to face the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and optimism. It is the belief that problems can be solved, differences resolved. It is a type of confidence. And it...”

“Which came first, the mind or the idea of the mind? Have you never wondered? They arrived together. The mind is an idea.”

“In the end, living is defined by dying.”

“Over time, a commitment to challenging, focused work and leisure produces not only better daily experience, but also a more complex, interesting person: the long-range benefit of the focused life. ...”

“Attention is the beginning of devotion.”

“You dont have to worry about getting the attention of others when youre good at what you do.”

“But fear and fascination are yokefellows, oxen out of step but pulling in the same direction...”

“A girl who travels will need someone that questions her, not too little, and not too much. Shell need someone to read her, but also really listen to her. Because shell want to do the same. Shell wa...”

“We are human, and nothing is more interesting to us than humanity. The appeal of literature is that it is so thoroughly a human thing by, for and about human beings. If you lose that focus, you ob...”