What does the frontal cortex do? Gratification postponement, executive function, long-term planning, and impulse control. Basically, it makes you do the harder thing.

Stress is not a state of mind... it's measurable and dangerous, and humans can't seem to find their off-switch.

We live well enough to have the luxury to get ourselves sick with purely social, psychological stress.

The purpose of science is not to cure us of our sense of mystery and wonder, but to constantly reinvent and reinvigorate it.

An open mind is a prerequisite to an open heart.

But if you get chronically, psychosocially stressed, you're going to compromise your health. So, essentially, we've evolved to be smart enough to make ourselves sick.

The less it is possible that something can be, the more it must be.

Essentially, we humans live well enough and long enough, and are smart enough, to generate all sorts of stressful events purely in our heads.

We all seek out stress. We hate the wrong kinds of stress but when it's the right kind, we love it - we pay good money to be stressed by a scary movie, a roller coaster ride, a challenging puzzle.

If a rat is a good model for your emotional life, you're in big trouble.

What happened in the milliseconds before a behavior to cause it? That's in the neurobiological realm.

We change the world not by what we say or do, but as a consequence of what we have become.

Am I worried about the future? I don't know. When I think of the word it's like seeing a cavity, a space where a tooth used to be.

I feel more alive now than I did while on earth. I am coming to terms with the notion that death is truly another word for opportunity.

I don't think in time signatures, and when I do, what I write is generally 3/4 or 4/4, the most basic, straightforward stuff. I think that comes from just not being a super-schooled musician.

Water is at the center of every chemical reaction, and therefore should be the earths most precious gift.

Nuclear weapons are the scourge of the earth; to mine for them, manufacture them, deploy them, use them, is a curse against God, the human family, and the earth itself.

My father was a very difficult man.

Ideas, even million-dollar ones, are most vulnerable in their infancy; don't share them with too many people. However, don't hide your plan from people who can help you move it forward.

If you behave like a doormat, expect to be stepped on and don't complain about it.

A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.