“But when the flash flood crosses your path, when the lion leaps at you from the grasses, advanced self-awareness is an unaffordable indulgence. The brain stem does its best.”

“The most altruistic and sustainable philosophies fail before the brute brain stem imperative of self-interest.”

“If the rest of your brain were conscious, it would probably regard you as the pointy-haired boss from Dilbert”

“If believing absurd falsehoods increase the odds of getting laid or avoiding predators, your brain will believe those falsehoods with all its metaphorical little heart.”

“Computers bootstrap their own offspring, grow so wise and incomprehensible that their communiqués assume the hallmarks of dementia: unfocused and irrelevant to the barely-intelligent creatures left behind. And when your surpassing creations find the answers you asked for, you can't understand their analysis and you can't verify their answers. You have to take their word on faith.”

“Brains are survival engines, not truth detectors.”

“How do you say 'We come in peace' when the very words are an act of war?”