Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrasment...They do everything but watch television.

All of today's DNA, strung through all the cells of the earth, is simply an extension and elaboration of [the] first molecule.

Cats - a standing rebuke to behavioural scientists . . . least human of all creatures.

The most solid piece of scientific truth I know of is that we are profoundly ignorant about nature.

It is a distortion, with something profoundly disloyal about it, to picture the human being as a teetering, fallible contraption, always needing, watching and patching, always on the verge of flapping to pieces.

We are built to make mistakes, coded for error.

Given any new technology for transmitting information, we seem bound to use it for great quantities of small talk. We are only saved by music from being overwhelmed by nonsense.