"When you don't have access to a subject, and all you have is ex-members and critics, there is this gravitational pull toward telling a certain version of events. Scientology would say this, and they have a point, that it's like doing a portrait of a marriage in which you're only hearing from the ex-wife and not the ex-husband."

"...We took the 10 machines we agreed were the most beguiling, and we put them on permanent exhibit in the foyer of this library underneath a sign whose words can surely be applied to this whole ruined planet nowadays: THE COMPLICATED FUTILITY OF IGNORANCE."

"The best rules to form a young man, are, to talk little, to hear much, to reflect alone upon what has passed in company, to distrust one's own opinions, and value others that deserve it."

"The universe seems to be a lot like a car or a computer, in that it's designed to be user-friendly, which doesn't necessarily require the user to have a clue what's going on under the hood."

"But then, anyone was capable of any manner of atrocities if they wanted something bad enough. People could justify anything to themselves if they wanted it bad enough. No one was immune to that."

"The brighter the sunlight, the worse it affects them,' said Einstein.'So we got to pay more attention to the weather forecast,' said DogNut. 'Cloudy with a chance of zombies."

"But they also awarded a quite respectable 55th place to Enoch Powell, thereby demonstrating that, for certain sections of the population, being an unpleasant racist constitutes no bar to greatness."

"When you come to examine into the actuating motives for any line of human endeavor you will find that vanity figures about ninety per cent directly or indirectly, in the assay."