Simple shapes are inhuman. They fail to resonate with the way nature organizes itself or with the way human perception sees the world.

Ideas that require people to reorganize their picture of the world provoke hostility.

You don’t see something until you have the right metaphor to let you perceive it

Of all the possible pathways of disorder, nature favors just a few.

it struck me as an operational way to define free will, in a way that allowed you to reconcile free will with determinism. The system is deterministic, but you can’t say what it’s going to do next.

The only things that can ever be universal, in a sense, are scaling things.

The early sense of self-similarity as an organizing principle came from the limitations on the human experience of scale.

IN THE MIND’S EYE, a fractal is a way of seeing infinity.

Self-similarity is symmetry across scale. It implies recursion, pattern inside of pattern.

Don't tell me anymore. You should have your dream, as the old woman told you to. I understand how you feel, but if you put those feelings into words they will turn into lies. (from Thailand)

i am constantly torn between killing myself and killing everyone around me. those seem to be the two choices. everything else is just killing time

The happily ever after thing. It's great when she marries the prince or whatever and they say that. But they just don't show the part where there's a revolution and they drag her to the guillotine.

I have devoted much time and energy to helping medical physics in developing countries.

The most uncommon form of intelligence is common sense.

Early on I saw the repression and idolatry of Stalinism, and when it cracked, I was open to religion again.

Only once in a lifetime love rushes in, changing you with the tide.

Gutenberg made everybody a reader. Xerox makes everybody a publisher.

Faith keeps the person who keeps the faith.

The pen is the lever that moves the world.