"We have created a man with not one brain but two. This new brain is intended to control the biological brain. The patient's biological brain is the peripheral terminal - the only peripheral terminal - for the new computer. And therefore the patient's biological brain, indeed his whole body, has become a terminal for the new computer. We have created a man who is one single, large, complex computer terminal. The patient is a read-out device for the new computer, and is helpless to control the readout as a TV screen is helpless to control the information presented on it."

"You are the reason why he exists on this earth. You don't have the right to abandon him just because he's inconvenient or has trouble in school."

"But don't you find it boring to wear only two colors? 'Not at all. I find it liberating. I believe my life has value, and I don't want to waste it thinking about clothing, Malcolm said. 'I don't want to think about what I will wear in the morning. Truly, can you imagine anything more boring than fashion? Professional sports, perhaps. Grown men swatting little balls, while the rest of the world pays money to applaud. But, on the whole, I find fashion even more tedious than sports."

"Sometimes I look around my living room, and the most real thing in the room is the television. It's bright and vivid, and the rest of my life looks drab. So I turn the damn thing off. That does it every time. Get my life back."

"Like all trial attorneys, he knew the importance of not dressing too well."

"Because the history of evolution is that life escapes all barriers. Life breaks free. Life expands to new territories. Painfully, perhaps even dangerously. But life finds a way."

"They didn't understand what they were doing.I'm afraid that will be on the tombstone of the human race."

"No one escapes from life alive."

"Although personally, I think cyberspace means the end of our species."

"Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled."

"But now science is the belief system that is hundreds of years old. And, like the medieval system before it, science is starting not to fit the world any more. Science has attained so much power that its practical limits begin to be apparent. Largely through science, billions of us live in one small world, densely packed and intercommunicating. But science cannot help us decide what to do with that world, or how to live. Science can make a nuclear reactor, but it cannot tell us not to build it. Science can make pesticide, but cannot tell us not to use it. And our world starts to seem polluted in fundamental ways--air, and water, and land--because of ungovernable science."

"The purpose of life is to stay alive. Watch any animal in nature-all it tries to do is stay alive. It doesn't care about beliefs or philosophy. Whenever any animal's behavior puts it out of touch with the realities of its existence, it becomes exinct."

"Sometimes women scare the hell out of me."

"Nobody is driven by abstractions like 'seeking truth."

"These animals are genetically engineered to be unable to survive in the real world. They can only live here in Jurassic Park. They are not free at all. They are essentially our prisoners."

"This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well. Richard Feynmann called it a disease. I fear he is right."

"In a sense, he thought, all we consist of is memories. Our personalities are constructed from memories, our lives are organized around memories, our cultures are built upon the foundation of shared memories that we call history and science."

"Extrapolating from the statistical growth of the legal profession, by the year 2035 every single person in the United States will be a lawyer, including newborn infants."

"A hundred years from now, people will look back on us and laugh. They'll say, 'You know what people used to believe? They believed in photons and electrons. Can you imagine anything so silly?' They'll have a good laugh, because by then there will be newer better fantasies... And meanwhile, you feel the way the boat moves? That's the sea. That's real. You smell the salt in the air? You feel the sunlight on your skin? That's all real. Life is wonderful. It's a gift to be alive, to see the sun and breathe the air. And there isn't really anything else."

"In the information society, nobody thinks. We expect to banish paper, but we actually banish thought."

"The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs.'"

"What is your itinerary?''To meet my maker.''Ah. Well. You're in luck. And what do you want to say to your maker?''A most mechanical and dirty hand [laughs]. I shall have such revenges on you...both. The things I will do, what they are, yet I know not. But they will be the terrors of the earth. You don't know where you are, do you? You're in a prison of your own sins."

"Sometimes I think everyone's an attorney."

"In the end, it became clear that all scientists were participants in a participatory universe which did not allow anyone to be a mere observer."

"A man can see by starlight, if he takes the time."

"When you have a strongly held belief, don't you think it's important to express that belief accurately?"

"The risk is too great. A man cannot place too much faith in any one thing, neither a woman, nor a horse, nor a weapon, nor any single thing."

"Life is wonderful. It's a gift to be alive, to see the sun and breathe the air. And there isn't really anything else."

"You can't get decent Mexican food in DC."

"Science is as corruptible a human activity as any other."

"At the edge of chaos, unexpected outcomes occur. The risk to survival is severe."

"Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had."

"We think we know what we are doing. We have always thought so."

"They are not free at all. They are essentially our prisoners."

"But complex animals had obtained their adaptive flexibility at some cost-they had traded one dependency for another. It was no longer necessary to change their bodies to adapt, because now their adaptation was behavior, socially determined. That behavior required learning. In a sense, among higher animals adaptive fitness was no longer transmitted to the next generation by DNA at all. It was now carried by teaching."

"Do you know what we call opinion in the absence of evidence? We call it prejudice."

"It's hard to decide who's truly brilliant; it's easier to see who's driven, which in the long run may be more important."

"He did not want an affair with his boss. He did not even want a one-night stand. Because what always happened was that people found out, gossip at the water cooler, meaningful looks in the hallway. And sooner or later the spouses found out. It always happened. Slammed doors, divorce lawyers, child custody."