I can't remember the last book that taught me so much, and so well, about what it means to be human.

The universe is computing its own destiny.

At its most fundamental, information is a binary choice. In other words, a single bit of information is one yes-or-no choice.

It is not the amount of knowledge that makes a brain. It is not even the distribution of knowledge. It is the interconnectedness.

In the mind's eye, a fractal is a way of seeing infinity.

Google is where we go for answers. People used to go elsewhere or, more likely, stagger along not knowing.

Writing comes into being to retain information across time and across space. Before writing, communication is evanescent and local; sounds carry a few yards and fade to oblivion. The evanescence of the spoken word went without saying. So fleeting was speech that the rare phenomenon of the echo, a sound heard once and then again, seemed a sort of magic.