Date: June 14, 2011

"They are a result of the way that the brain, a Rube Goldberg mental contraption, processes memory."

— Cohen, Patricia

Date: September 2, 2011

"The 'will' in willpower is not some mysterious 'free will,' a ghost in the machine that can do as it pleases, but a part of the machine itself."

— Pinker, Steven (b. 1954)

Date: April 25, 2011

"The brain is a remarkably capable chronometer for most purposes."

— Bilger, Burkhard

Date: April 25, 2011

"Like a racing engine, her mental clock went faster the hotter it got."

— Bilger, Burkhard

Date: April 25, 2011

"The most recent neuroscience papers make the brain sound like a Victorian attic, full of odd, vaguely labelled objects ticking away in every corner."

— Bilger, Burkhard

Date: April 25, 2011

"At U.C.L.A., Dean Buonomano believes that areas throughout the brain function as clocks, their tissue ticking with neural networks that change in predictable patterns. 'Imagine a skyscraper at night,' he told me. 'Some people on the top floor work till midnight, while some on the lower floors ma...

— Bilger, Burkhard

Date: April 25, 2011

"'I knew I had some intellectual horsepower,' he says. 'But I didn't know where my tires would catch purchase.'"

— Bilger, Burkhard

Date: October 14, 2011

"To its detractors, the brain is a kludge, a hacked-up device beset with bugs, biases and self-­deceptions that undermine our decision making and well-being at every turn."

— Charbris, Christopher F. (b. 1966)

Date: October 14, 2011

"Lately, a growing army of Chicken Littles retorts that this very plasticity has been hijacked by the Internet and other forms of technological crack that are rewiring our brains into a state of continual distraction and intellectual torpor."

— Charbris, Christopher F. (b. 1966)

Date: October 14, 2011

"So if you find yourself stopping every 30 seconds to check your Twitter feed, your brain has no more been rewired than if you find yourself taking a break for ice cream rather than celery. Picking the more rewarding stimulus is something our brains can do perfectly well with the wiring they star...

— Charbris, Christopher F. (b. 1966)