“If a conservationist has more stathmin, less risk-taking gene, and the pro-drilling advocate has less stathmin, more risk-taking gene, how can the two have a reasonable dialogue?”

“Imagine how different dialogue might be with future generations raised on the idea that there are biological constraints on our ability to know what we know. To me, that is our only hope.”

“Though not necessarily aware of when we feel purpose and meaning, we are nearly always aware of the sickening feeling when we don't possess them. This isn't an intellectual misapprehension; it is a gut sense of disorientation and a loss of personal direction. Rarely are brute mental effort and self-help pep talks able to rekindle the missing feeling. For most of us, we simply wait patiently, knowing from past experience that the feeling will return in its own sweet time . . . Of particular interest is [Tolstoy's] conclusion as to the inability of science and reason to provide a personal sense of meaning.”

“Sex, whatever else it is, is an athletic skill. The more you practice, the more you can, the more you want to, the more you enjoy it, the less it tires you.”

“To The Reader Who Employs His Leisure IllWhoever you may be, I caution you against rashly defaming the author of this work, or cavilling in jest against him. Nay, do not silently reproach him in consequence of others' censure, nor employ your wit in foolish disapproval or false accusation. For, should Democritus Junior prove to be what he professes, even a kinsman of his elder namesake, or be ever so little of the same kidney, it is all up with you: he will become both accuser and judge of you in his petulant spleen, will dissipate you in jest, pulverize you with witticisms, and sacrifice you, I can promise you, to the God of Mirth.Again I warn you against cavilling, lest, while you culumniate or disgracefully disparage Decmocritus Junior, who has no animosity against you, you should hear from some judicious friend the very words the people of Abdera heard of old from Hippocrates, when they held their well-deserving and popular fellow-citizen to be a madman: "Truly, it is you, Democritus, that are wise, while the people of Abdera are fools and madmen." You have no more sense than the people of Abdera. Having given you this warning in a few words, O reader who employ your liesure ill, farewell.”

“Unfortunately, there's no test of compatibility to see how couples will survive together, despite what they say on those online dating sites. There's always a risk you take when you agree to spend the rest of your life with someone.”

“No cord or cable can draw so forcibly, or bind so fast, as [love] can do with a single thread.”