Discovering a new explanation is inherently an act of creativity.

Quantum computation is a distinctively new way of harnessing nature. It will be the first technology that allows useful tasks to be performed in collaboration between parallel universes.

Feeling insignificant because the universe is large has exactly the same logic as feeling inadequate for not being a cow.

It is possible to build a virtual-reality generator whose repertoire includes every possible environment.

Our best theories are not only truer than common sense, they make more sense than common sense...

Every problem that is interesting is also soluble.

Base metals can be transmuted into gold by stars, and by intelligent beings who understand the processes that power stars, but by nothing else in the universe.

The whole [scientific] process resembles biological evolution. A problem is like an ecological niche, and a theory is like a gene or a species which is being tested for viability in that niche.

No precautions, and no precautionary principle, can avoid problems that we do not yet foresee. We need a stance of problem-fixing, not just problem-avoidance.

The overwhelming majority of theories are rejected because they contain bad explanations, not because they fail experimental tests.

Humans may or may not have cosmic significance, and if they do, it will be by hitching a ride on the objective centrality of knowledge in the cosmic scheme of things.

Sometimes a perfect memory can be ruined if put to words.

The most important role models should and could be parents and teachers. But that said, once you're a teenager you've probably gotten as much of an example from your parents as you're going to.

I suffered evils, but without allowing them to rob me of the freedom to expand.

With growth comes change.

Then why flounder around waiting for good business? Get the costs down by better management. Get the prices down to the buying power.

Aye, aye! and I'll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give him up.

Politeness is the flower of humanity.

I had at some point the epiphany that if I wanted to be a writer, maybe I should stop thinking about writing, or stop writing about writing, and actually write.

I would love to record something with PJ Harvey or Alison Goldfrapp.

From a single crime know the nation.