"We wrote the first draft in about nine weeks. Nine weeks of gloriously long phone calls, in which we would read each other what we'd written, and try to make the other one laugh. We'd plot, delightedly, and then hurry off the phone, determined to get to the next good bit before the other one could. We'd rewrite each other, footnote each other's pages, sometimes even footnote each other's footnotes."

"You can have all your scientific method down, all your experiments done accurately and recorded in minute detail. But most of the significant, universe-changing advances in science were not done by me…"

"To quote computer graphics pioneer Ivan Sutherland who said in 1965: "The ultimate display would, of course, be a room within which the computer can control the existence of matter. A chair displayed …"

"If you read about African music, they believe that during the process of making this music that you come into contact with spirits from another plane. They say that this place is like a mirror of the …"

"Some people, myself included, advocated foreign intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo while opposing our adventure in Iraq. Sam Moyn might find this inconsistent, but it is the world that is inconsistent,…"