To me quantum computation is a new and deeper and better way to understand the laws of physics, and hence understanding physical reality as a whole.

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.

So fear helps me from making mistakes, but I make lot of mistakes.

Do battle with the challenges of your present, and you will unlock the prizes of your future.

Remember, no matter how hard your life is right now, it would be worse if a song by Chicago was playing.

Sometimes my scripts get so dissolved, and they're so different from when I wrote them originally, that I find it hard to find what I wrote in it.

Real integrity stays in place whether the test in adversity or prosperity.

Back in the 1960s Africa not only fed itself, it also exported food. Not anymore.

I feel like an old lady; my hero is Miss Marple.

What makes you imagine ... that anything of importance can be taught in a school?

Any team can have a bad century.

I don’t know whose brilliant idea that was, but it wasn’t mine, that’s for sure.