Butterfly?" Will said. "Why Butterfly?" "I believe it's a term of great respect," Selethen said gravely. He was very obviously not laughing. Too obviously, Will thought. "It's all right for you," he said. "They called you 'Hawk.' Hawk is an excellent...
Sports is like a war without the killing.
Everything in our society is so purposeful.
The real minimum wage is zero.
The trust of the people in the leaders reflects the confidence of the leaders in the people.
Society needs hundreds of hundreds of thousands of Chen Guangbiaos.
Ideas have consequences that can transform society.
I'm a big Stephen King fan.
People are always looking for the single magic bullet that will totally change everything. There is no single magic bullet.
[after Nelson, Twombly, and Yurek grouped together; talking about equipment] Twombly: Never mind. You brought NOD, right? Yurek: No, I did not bring it. You know why? Because you said: "You won't need that dude, we'll be back in a half-hour." Twombly...
Othic: [after Kowalewski had been killed by an RPG] [to Mcknight] Othic: There's a fucking rocket in him, sir! McKnight: Othic, cool off! Goddamn it! There's live ordnance, now get out! McKnight: [after pulling Kowalewski's body out of the humvee] So...
Harell: Now he's saying the target building's actually a couple blocks down but if he's seen outside it he'll be shot. Garrison: I'll fucking shoot him myself a couple blocks down. Tell him I want his skinny ass parked in front of the damn building, ...
I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prej...
I don't think science is hard to teach because humans aren't ready for it, or because it arose only through a fluke, or because, by and large, we don't have the brainpower to grapple with it. Instead, the enormous zest for science that I see in first...
Occasionally, I get a letter from someone who is in “contact” with extraterrestrials. I am invited to “ask them anything.” And so over the years I’ve prepared a little list of questions. The extraterrestrials are very advanced, remember. So...
Maybe we feel meaning only when we deal with something bigger. Perhaps we hope that someone else, especially someone important to us, will ascribe value to what we've produced? Maybe we need the illusion that our work might one day matter to many peo...
But you can’t be a scientist if you’re uncomfortable with ignorance, because scientists live at the boundary between what is known and unknown in the cosmos. This is very different from the way journalists portray us. So many articles begin, “S...
No Self stands alone. Behind it stretches an immense chain of physical and - as a special class within the whole - mental events, to which it belongs as a reacting member and which it carries on. Through the condition at any moment of its somatic, es...
When the Starbursts cost a cent apiece, the average number of candies per customer was 3.5, but when the price went down to zero, the average went down to 1.1 per customer. The students limited themselves to a large degree when the candy was free. In...
Pero ¿por qué hemos de empeñarnos en pensar que el universo fue hecho para nosotros? ¿Por qué resulta tan atractiva esa idea? ¿Por qué seguimos alimentándola? ¿Es tan precaria nuestra autoestima que no podemos conformarnos con nada inferior ...
Or consider a story in the Jewish Talmud left out of the Book of Genesis. (It is in doubtful accord with the account of the apple, the Tree of Knowledge, the Fall, and the expulsion from Eden.) In The Garden, God tells Eve and Adam that He has intent...
