"Replying to following question by Deborah Solomon in Questions for Douglas Hofstadter: "Your entry in Wikipedia says that your work has inspired many students to begin careers in computing and artificial intelligence." He replied "I have no interest in computers. The entry is filled with inaccuracies, and it kind of depresses me." When asked why he didn't fix it, he replied, "The next day someone will fix it back."

“Irrationality is the square root of all evil.”

“The nice thing about having a brain is that one can learn, that ignorance can be supplanted by knowledge, and that small bits of knowledge can gradually pile up into substantial heaps.”

“Relying on words to lead you to the truth is like relying on an incomplete formal system to lead you to the truth. A formal system will give you some truths, but as we shall soon see, a formal system, no matter how powerful—cannot lead to all truths.”

“This type of paradox is quite characteristic of Zen. It is an attempt to "break the mind of logic.”

“The "Strange Loop" phenomenon occurs whenever, by moving upwards through levels of some hierarchial system, we unexpectedly find ourselves right back where we started.”

“Perhaps the most concise summary of enlightenment would be: transcending dualism. … Dualism is the conceptual division of the world into categories. … human perception is by nature a dualistic phenomenon— which makes the quest for enlightenment an uphill struggle, to say the least.”