I suspect music is auditory cheesecake, an exquisite confection crafted to tickle the sensitive spots of... our mental faculties.

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.

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.

We will never have a perfect world, but it's not romantic or naive to work toward a better one.

That said the conspirators: Tell us your secret and we will have betrayed you for a lifetime.

I always see the crack in the glass before I see the window.

William "Boss" Tweed was in such thorough control in New York that he made money off of the report the committee printed after investigating him.

The things I'm guided to do are really strange to me.

When you reminisce aren't the times that someone's forcing you to reminisce. You reminisce other times in your life.

As an improviser I'm now pretty comfortable with trios, so I'm thinking of working up to quartets.

The more you drop into your heart, the more God can drop into your mind.

I think my parents' lives are worthy of writing about. I don't think my life is particularly worthy of writing about.

For human beings, the most daunting challenge is to become fully human. For to become fully human is to become fully divine.

I guess destiny isn't the path chosen for us, but the path we chose for ourselves.