In fact, one of the arguments for searching for intelligent life in space, elsewhere, is that we have no evidence that intelligence has any survival value. The most successful creatures on this planet are the cockroaches. They've been around, what is it, 100 million years or so and I suspect they'll still be there 100 million years in the future. Maybe intelligence is an evolutionary aberration which dooms its possessors in the way armor may have doomed some of the dinosaurs.

If children have interests, then education happens.

Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading sex manuals without the software.

Death focuses the mind on the things that really matter: why are we here, and what should we do?

The difference between machines and human beings is that human beings can be reproduced by unskilled labour.

When I start on a book, I have been thinking about it and making occasional notes for some time... So I have lots of theme, locale, subjects and technical ideas... I don't worry about long periods of not doing anything. I know my subconscious is busy.

I have great faith in optimism as a guiding principle, if only because it offers us the opportunity of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.