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.

If we can't program it, we can't understand it.

placid, adj.Sometimes I love it when we just lie on our backs, gaze off, stay still.

Home was where others had to gather grace. Home was what I wanted to flee.

I thought I was in love once and then later I thought maybe it was just an inner-ear imbalance.

By all means, don't say, "if I can," say "I will."

My guitar player calls the process of writing lyrics based on another story, "filling up the well" when you can get inspiration from other people's art without stealing, more being influenced by it.

The really explicit phrase is doors of perception.

Historians will likely give Obama credit for steering the country away from the brink of economic collapse in 2009.

Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one.

The people who come out on top in music business have persistence. It is key! Fall down seven times; stand up eight. It takes a lot of courage and an unwavering belief in yourself and your abilities.

Star Wars is one of a handful of films that changed the zeitgeist forever.