We turn to quantities when we can't compare the qualities of things.

In science, one learns the most by studying what seems to be the least.

What magical trick makes us intelligent? The trick is that there is no trick. The power of intelligence stems from our vast diversity, not from any single, perfect principle.

Experience has shown that science frequently develops most fruitfully once we learn to examine the things that seem the simplest, instead of those that seem the most mysterious.

What is intelligence, anyway It is only a word that people use to name those unknown processes with which our brains solve problems we call hard. But whenever you learn a skill yourself, you're less impressed or mystified when other people do the same. This is why the meaning of 'intelligence' seems so elusive: It describes not some definite thing but only the momentary horizon of our ignorance about how minds might work.

General fiction is pretty much about ways that people get into problems and screw their lives up. Science fiction is about everything else.

But the big feature of human-level intelligence is not what it does when it is works but what it does when it's stuck.