Although computer memory is no longer expensive, there's always a finite size buffer somewhere. When a big piece of news arrives, everybody sends a message to everybody else, and the buffer fills.

Where do I really belong? I avoid saying everywhere - which switches all too easily to nowhere. Instead, when pressed, I call myself a fractalist.

An extraordinary amount of arrogance is present in any claim of having been the first in inventing something.

Both parents worshiped individual achievement, but because of the Depression and the war, they never achieved what they wanted and deserved. So their ambition and high expectations were transferred to me.

Gay adults start as gay kids... Now they've got to figure out how to be with each other and be with family, friends, and the communities at school.

I think that the ideal of parenting can make people unhappy. It's that this lie that they're being told by society that parenting is one thing - and when parenting is something completely different - that's what makes them unhappy.

As a parent, you go through a whole lot of really tough things, and you kind of want other parents to experience those tough things as payback - especially when it's your brother.

Hanging out with the Trees is like hanging out with your family, and I hardly ever see my family.