At that age， I'd take any excuse to make estimates and do minor arithmetic. I'd calculate our gas mileage -- figure out useless statistics on things like grocery spending. I'd been hearing an ad campaign about smoking. I can't remember the details， but basically the ad said， every puff of a cigarette takes some number of minutes off of your life: I think it might have been two minutes per puff. At any rate， I decided to do the math for my grandmother. I estimated the number of cigarettes per days， estimated the number of puffs per cigarette and so on. When I was satisfied that I'd come up with a reasonable number， I poked my head into the front of the car， tapped my grandmother on the shoulder， and proudly proclaimed， "At two minutes per puff， you've taken nine years off your life！"
In mathematics, the art of proposing a question must be held of higher value than solving it.
We are survival machines—robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.
下一代将根据我们在水中留下的东西来评判我们，而不是我们从中获取的东西。
历史的终结将是一个非常悲伤的时刻。为纯粹抽象目标而奋斗、愿意冒生命危险的斗争，以及激发勇气、想象力、理想主义的全球意识形态斗争，将被经济计算、无休止的技术问题解决、环境关注和复杂消费需求的满足所取代。
The end of history will be a very sad time. The struggle for recognition, the willingness to risk one's life for a purely abstract goal, the worldwide ideological struggle that called forth daring, courage, imagination, and idealism, will be replaced by economic calculation, the endless solving of technical problems, environmental concerns, and the satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands.