“Computers will have to learn that when I quote from some old author who spelled differently from the machine, the wishes of the long-dead author will have to be respected, and the machine will have to mind its manners”

“I am not some kind of computer. Only machines have glib answers for everything.”

“Respect for authority is a disease, no different from the Venusian Gook Rot.”

“Our metaphors for the operation of the brain are frequently drawn from the production line. We think of the brain as a glorified sausage machine, taking in information from the senses, processing it and regurgitating it in a different form, as thoughts or actions. The digital computer reinforces this idea because it is quite explicitly a machine that does to information what a sausage machine does to pork. Indeed, the brain was the original inspiration and metaphor for the development of the digital computer, and early computers were often described as 'giant brains'. Unfortunately, neuroscientists have sometimes turned this analogy on its head, and based their models of brain function on the workings of the digital computer (for example by assuming that memory is separate and distinct from processing, as it is in a computer). This makes the whole metaphor dangerously self-reinforcing.”

“The machines men are so intent on making have carried them very far from the old sweet things.”

“I have enormous respect for the reader. They are able to take symbols from a page that an author has invented, and turn them into images in their minds that create an enduring story. If that’s not artistry, I don’t know what is.”