The haven all memes depend on reaching is the human mind, but a human mind is itself an artifact created when memes restructure a human brain in order to make it a better habitat for memes.

The secret of happiness is: Find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it.

The idea that God is a worthy recipient of our gratitude for the blessings of life but should not be held accountable for the disasters is a transparently disingenuous innovation of the theologians.

Life itself is just a thin coat of paint on the planet, and we hold the paintbrush.

There’s simply no polite way to tell people they’ve dedicated their lives to an illusion.

The chief trick to making good mistakes is not to hide them-especially not from yourself.

What you can imagine depends on what you know.

There are no forces on this planet more dangerous to all of us than the fanaticisms of fundamentalism.

There may be things that are completely unknowable to us, so we must be careful not to treat the limits of our knowledge as sure guides to the limit of what there is.

A child raised on a desert island, alone, without social interaction, without language, and thus lacking empathy, is still a sentient being.

There is no polite way to suggest to someone that they have devoted their life to a folly.

I wanted to show these people who he really was. And pain always did that, took the insides out."pg 364

Surfaces simultaneously reveal and conceal.

Made­lyne, I would like to speak to you in pri­vate after din­ner." "Speak to me about what?" Made­lyne de­manded with a dis­grun­tled look. "Men and their horses," Dun­can told her

It is a game, the whole ball of wax is a game - your life, my life, politics, economy, hunger.

You assume things, like whatever country has more firepower wins the wars, and that's actually not true at all.

I used to draw and illustrate, but I don't do that anymore because I just like to write. I like to leave the illustrations to actual professional illustrators.

Set your affection to infinity and your hate to zero!

A good plan isn't one where someone wins, it's where nobody thinks they've lost.

Good managers have a bias for action.