I was raised with the idea that if you're not smart enough to do science you can do politics.

Human intelligence was more trouble than it was worth. It was more destructive than creative, more confusing than revealing, more discouraging than satisfying, more spiteful than charitable.

...scientific power is like inherited wealth: attained without discipline. You read what others have done, and you take the next step. You can do it very young...there is no mastery, old scientists are ignored. There is no humility before nature...Its a form of inherited wealth. And you know what assholes congenitally rich people are.

Nobody is driven by abstractions like 'seeking truth.

If true computer music were ever written, it would only be listened to by other computers.

Discovery, they believe, is inevitable. So they just try to do it first. That's the game in science.

All major changes are like death. You can't see to the other side until you are there.