An open mind is a prerequisite to an open heart.

Stress is not a state of mind... it's measurable and dangerous, and humans can't seem to find their off-switch.

We live well enough to have the luxury to get ourselves sick with purely social, psychological stress.

The purpose of science is not to cure us of our sense of mystery and wonder, but to constantly reinvent and reinvigorate it.

But if you get chronically, psychosocially stressed, you're going to compromise your health. So, essentially, we've evolved to be smart enough to make ourselves sick.

The less it is possible that something can be, the more it must be.

Essentially, we humans live well enough and long enough, and are smart enough, to generate all sorts of stressful events purely in our heads.

We all seek out stress. We hate the wrong kinds of stress but when it's the right kind, we love it - we pay good money to be stressed by a scary movie, a roller coaster ride, a challenging puzzle.

What does the frontal cortex do? Gratification postponement, executive function, long-term planning, and impulse control. Basically, it makes you do the harder thing.

If a rat is a good model for your emotional life, you're in big trouble.

What happened in the milliseconds before a behavior to cause it? That's in the neurobiological realm.

Opera cuts to the chase—as death does. An art which seeks, more obviously than any other form, to break your heart.

May you find the strength and resolve today, to allow a deeper sense of healing to begin.

By educating the young, we are building a liberating potential force indirectly.

A generation ago there were a thousand men to every opportunity, while today there are a thousand opportunities to every man.

Working for a big company is, I believe, much risker than it looks.

I learned how to sit on the couch in front of the fire and read a magazine, just for like eight hours a day, every day. It was... crazy.

And that is how I employ my time in cinema, saying things about people who I think have touched us in terms of our value judgement and by example.

I was doing what I thought I had to do. There was romance in the idea of being married. It was just the wrong reasons.

I can't say that I ever actually decided to become a writer. It kind of snuck up on me.