In societies no less than individuals, acknowledging our limitations may ultimately be more humane than denying them.

I get drawn in when I feel there is something deep and mysterious going on beneath the surface of something.

All our behaviours are a result of neurophysiological activity in the brain. There is no reason to believe there is any magic going on.

Reading is a technology for perspective-taking. When someone else's thoughts are in your head, you are observing the world from that person's vantage point.

The problem with the emotions is not that they are untamed forces or vestiges of our animal past; it is that they were designed to propagate copies of the genes that built them rather than to promote happiness, wisdom, or moral values.

Writers acquire their technique by spotting, savoring, and reverse-engineering examples of good prose.

Many artists and scholars have pointed out that ultimately art depends on human nature.