The reason we form networks is because the benefits of a connected life outweigh the costs. It's to our advantage as individuals and a species to assemble ourselves in this fashion.

It used to be thought that our genes were historically immutable and that it was not possible to imagine a conversation between culture and genetics.

There are very fundamental reasons we live our lives in social networks and if we really understood the role they're playing in our society we would take better care of social networks and find ways to take advantage of their power to improve our society.

It's fashionable to speak about vulnerable populations in medicine and public policy, but it's harder to find a more vulnerable population than those who are dying.

We cannot understand our humanity just by studying individuals.

People have just assumed that... if we call our Facebook acquaintances our friends, we must be influenced by them, too. But we're not.

I like to have met someone in real life before being their Facebook friend.