Might we... be doing something with our brains that cannot be described in computational terms at all? How do our feelings of conscious awareness - of happiness, pain, love, aesthetic sensibility, will, understanding, etc. - fit into such a computational picture?

A computer is a great device because it enables you to do anything which is automatic, anything that you don't need your understanding for. Understanding is outside a computer. It doesn't understand.

Well, gauge theory is very fundamental to our understanding of physical forces these days. But they are also dependent on a mathematical idea, which has been around for longer than gauge theory has.

People think of these eureka moments and my feeling is that they tend to be little things, a little realisation and then a little realisation built on that.

My mother, who was professional schoolteacher, was particularly concerned about our formal education and even went so far as to start a private school together with some other parents so that our intellectual needs would be met.

I'm not an expert on the Middle East or terrorism or the use of military force or politics. It's all I can do to know a little bit about how to help people raise their kids and what to do when they get sick. When a war happens, I just hope it gets over with quickly so that how we take care of children becomes more important again.

The bullied straight kid goes home to a shoulder to cry on and support and can talk freely about his experience at school and why he's being bullied. I couldn't go home and open up to my parents.

Characters in a book are very much like personalities divvied up within a family. In the end, it all averages out to a sort of overall averageness.