The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda.

Sometimes I look around my living room, and the most real thing in the room is the television. It's bright and vivid, and the rest of my life looks drab. So I turn the damn thing off. That does it every time. Get my life back.

The notion that the natural world obeys its own rules and doesn't give a damn about your expectations comes as a massive shock. But the natural world is not so malleable. On the contrary, it will demand that you adapt to it - and if you don't, you die.

In science, the old men are usually wrong. But in politics, the old men are wise, counsel caution, and in the end are often right.

We all live every day in virtual environments, defined by our ideas.

In our modern complex world, fundamentalism is dangerous because of its rigidity and its imperviousness to other ideas.

Increasingly, people perceive no difference between the narcissistic self-serving reporters asking questions, and the narcissistic self-serving politicians who evade them.