I have a philosophy that has guided me throughout all of my scientific career, and that is, I think of myself as a fairly thoughtful person. I don't go into projects impetuously, and I try to select important problems.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, psychoanalysis swept through the intellectual community, and it was the dominant mode of thinking about the mind. People felt that this was a completely new set of insights into human motivation, and that its therapeutic potential was significant.

I like problems at the borders of disciplines. One of the reasons that neurobiology of learning and memory appeal to me so much was that I liked the idea of bringing biology and psychology together.

Modernism in Vienna brought together science and culture in a new way to create an Age of Insight that emphasized a more complex view of the human mind than had ever existed before.

The currencies of science are discoveries and ideas; the rewards are the excitement of going where nobody has been before and, if one is inclined to such things, the kudos of peer acclaim, plus funds to do more research.

I wanted to have the no. 1 show on the Discovery channel. I went for it for a very long time, and I was knocking on every door in L.A. that would answer, and sleeping in front of Discovery’s office, probably. It wasn’t working, so I decided to regroup and take a break from knocking on doors."

The Glassco Commission was really not interested in good science. It was interested in good accounting.

Science as an intellectual exercise enriches our culture, and is in itself ennobling.