The language that nature speaks is the same language that we invented for mathematics. That's just an amazing piece of luck, which we don't understand.

The public knows that human beings are fallible. Only people blinded by ideology fall into the trap of believing in their own infallibility.

The world is just - it's wonderful when you look at all the detail. It's just amazing. Nothing is boring if you look at it carefully.

Science was blamed for all the horrors of World War I, just as it's blamed today for nuclear weapons and quite rightly. I mean World War I was a horrible war and it was mostly the fault of science, so that was in a way a very bad time for science, but on the other hand we were winning all these Nobel Prizes.

In religion, you're supposed to be somehow in touch with something deep and full of mysteries.

I think that the artificial-intelligence people are making a lot of noise recently, claiming that artificial intelligence is making huge progress and we're going to be outstripped by the machines. But, in my view, this whole field is based on a misconception. I think the brain is analog, whereas the machines are digital. They really are different. So I think that what the machines can do, of course, is wonderful, but it's not the same as what the brain can do.

Mostly I'm just writing books for the public, and so I try to describe for the public what the choices are, what they might have to expect in the future and so by warning people ahead of time maybe you have an effect.