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"The work that is truly productive is the domain of a steadily smaller and more elite fraction of humanity."
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"The poorest paid architect, engineer, general, author, sculptor, painter, lecturer, advocate, legislator, actor, preacher, singer is constructively in heaven when he is at work; and as for the musician with the fiddle-bow in his hand who sits in the midst of a great orchestra with the ebbing and flowing tides of divine sound washing over him--why, certainly, he is at work, if you wish to call it that, but lord, it's a sarcasm just the same."

"Intellectual 'work' is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation, and is its own highest reward. The poorest paid architect, engineer, general, author, sculptor, painter, lecturer, advocate, legislator, actor, preacher, singer, is constructively in heaven when he is at work; and as for the magician with the fiddle-bow in his hand, who sits in the midst of a great orchestra with the ebbing and flowing tides of divine sound washing over him - why, certainly he is at work, if you wish to call it that, but lord, it's a sarcasm just the same. The law of work does seem utterly unfair - but there it is, and nothing can change it: the higher the pay in enjoyment the worker gets out of it, the higher shall be his pay in cash also."

"Rohan, one of us is an unmarried man with superior mathematical abilities and no prospects for the evening. The other is a confirmed lecher in an amorous mood, with a willing and nubile young wife waiting at home. Who do you think should do the damned account books?" And, with a nonchalant wave, St. Vincent had left the office."

"You have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it."

"At my age, I realize that my most precious possession is time, and I've got too much unfinished work to do to spend even a minute talking about myself."

"I am not interested in genres. I am interested in doing the best work I can in whatever medium."
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"My favourite all-time work of fiction: Lord of the Rings. My favourite all-time nonfiction book: Guns, Germs, and Steel. Ask me again next week, you'll get a different answer."
Work,
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"I argue in this paper that we are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth."


"When I began writing science fiction in the middle '60s, it seemed very easy to find ideas that took decades to percolate into the cultural consciousness; now the lead time seems more like eighteen months."


"The problem is not simply that the Singularity represents the passing of humankind from center stage, but that it contradicts our most deeply held notions of being."


"And for all my rampant technological optimism, sometimes I think I'd be more comfortable if I were regarding these transcendental events from one thousand years remove... instead of twenty."


"We humans have millions of years of evolutionary baggage that makes us regard competition in a deadly light."


"When people speak of creating superhumanly intelligent beings, they are usually imagining an AI project."


"I am suggesting that we recognize that in network and interface research there is something as profound (and potential wild) as Artificial Intelligence."
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