“I don't think it had ever occurred to me that man's supremacy is not primarily due to his brain, as most of the books would have one think. It is due to the brain's capacity to make use of the information conveyed to it by a narrow band of visible light rays. His civilization, all that he had achieved or might achieve, hung upon his ability to perceive that range of vibrations from red to violet. Without that, he was lost.”

“When does he ever think?" Richard straddled a chair and accepted a wind cup from Raoul. "If he were to sell his brain, he could claim it had never been used.", Chapter 7”

“According to the brain-centered model of exercise performance, a runner achieves his race goal when his brain calculates that achieving the race goal is possible without catastrophic self-harm.”

“He was uninterested in art, politics, culture, people. While his brain burrowed through rock toward a very specific knowledge goal, mine preferred to warren the air; his brain operated a drill bit while mine launched a thousand aimless kites that tangled strings or bounced along the invisible currents, disconnected and alone. Cognitively, we were the gravitational negatives of each other. Sometimes I wished I had his brain. But only sometimes. He suffered due to his specialized excesses; he just suffered differently from me.”

“Hell and furies!" Eleanor had begun to pace, her skirts swirling about her ankles. "What was he thinking?""When does he ever think?" Richard straddled a chair and accepted a wine cup from Raoul. "If he were to sell his brain, he could claim it had never been used.”

“For I consider brains far superior to money in every way. You may have noticed that if one has money without brains, he cannot use it to his advantage; but if one has brains without money, they will enable him to live comfortably to the end of his days.”