“I alternate between feeling sympathetic toward humanity and being a misanthrope. When I'm sympathetic, it usually means I haven't been around people in awhile.”

“I don't believe in ONE holy book. I believe all books are holy. Of course, some books are holy shit.”

“When I was a young philosopher, I asked a senior colleague, Pat Suppes (then and now a famous philosopher of science and an astute student of human nature), what the secret of happiness was. Instead of giving me advice, he made a rather droll observation about what a lot of people who were happy with themselves seem to have done, namely:1. Take a careful inventory of their shortcomings and flaws2. Adopt a code of values that treats these things as virtues3. Admire themselves for living up to itBrutal people admire themselves for being manly; compulsive pedants admire themselves for their attention to detail; naturally selfish and mean people admire themselves for their dedication to helping the market reward talent and punish failure, and so on.”

“It's this oppressive, aggressive and exclusice side to cool that makes me declare ardently, no I'm not cool. I rebel against the notion of a standard or style or attitude that oppresses those that don't fit in- that excludes and diminishes the vulnerable, the shy, the uninformed and the uncofident. I rebel, too, against the dominance of a set of values which seems so geared towards the superficial and ephemeral. And I rebel against the idea of being cool if it means being detatched, distant, univolved, dismissive, unresponsive, lacking in emotional honesty- in fact, lacking in all the things that make the world a happier, more sympathetic place.”

“When you have nothing to say, one of your alternatives is to keep your trap shut.”

“Hank is a dog, not a human dressed up in a dog suit. Humans share some of his flaws, but I get my ideas from watching dogs.”

“In general, I feel if you can't say it clearly you don't understand it yourself.”