Martin Rees Quotes

Soon the digital divide will not be between the haves and the have-nots. It will be between the know-hows and the non-know-hows.

Technical knowledge has now become an integral aspect of the Iranian psyche.

I've never been a great one for technology.

Younger generations in particular, who have spent a great deal of time in information environments since they were small children, would feel like a fish out of water if they were shut out of the global stream of information.

I think the phrase 'computer-literate' is an evil phrase. You don't have to be 'automobile-literate' to get along in this world. You don't have to be 'telephone-literate.' Why should you have to be 'computer-literate'?

There are seven billion people in the world. And I think phones are the first time most people will have access to a modern computing device. With Android, we want to enable that for people.

I know it sounds strange to say, but the very technologies that have made traveling easier for most people - GPS, automated ticket machines, online schedules and ticketing, boarding passes you can print out at home - have actually made things harder for me.

We're building what I call 'software apartheid.' We're in the process of creating a divided society: those who can use technology on one side, and those who can't on the other. And it happens to divide neatly along economic lines.

The central paradox of the machines that have made our lives so much brighter, quicker, longer and healthier is that they cannot teach us how to make the best use of them; the information revolution came without an instruction manual.

I use computers and the Internet every day of my life, and yet I have absolutely no idea how they work. I'm like a labrador watching 'The Matrix.'

I want to look at life - at the commonplaces of existence - as if we had just turned a corner and run into it for the first time.

One night some short weeks ago, for the first time in her not always happy life, Marilyn Monroe's soul sat down alone to a quiet supper from which it did not rise.

The extreme sophistication of modern technology - wonderful though its benefits are - is, ironically, an impediment to engaging young people with basics: with learning how things work.

I only used a cell phone for the first time after I was released. I had difficulty coping with it because it seemed so small and insubstantial.

During the week that I arrived in the United States, I saw an airport, used a telephone, used a library, talked with a scientist, and was shown a computer for the first time in my life.

If someone is not tech savvy, I have no time for them. I've always been a big believer in looking forward.

For the first time in human history, there are no elders anymore who know what young people know.

I could give examples of cabinet ministers, including defence ministers, who have no technological culture at all. In other words, what I am suggesting is that the hype generated by the publicity around the Internet and so on is not counter balanced by a political intelligence that is based on a technological culture.

The Nobel Prize has given me, for the first time in my life, the feeling that my literature could be appreciated on an international level.

When I moved to New York at 22, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I took an improv class, and the first scene I did, I felt like 'I want to do this for the rest of my life.' It was the first time I ever felt like that about anything. I tried to make a living off improv.

When I write, I lose time. I'm happy in a way that I have a hard time finding in real life. The intimacy between my brain and my fingers and my computer... Yet knowing that that intimacy will find an audience... It's very satisfying. It's like having the safety of being alone with the ego reward of being known.

I always tell people I'm grateful for my cancer diagnosis because it was the greatest gift because it completely changed my life. I was able to stop and let my whole life and world just crash over me like a wave. And I stood there and went, 'Wow.' And for the first time, I stopped everything. I had to.

The feeling of your baby taking nourishment from your body for the first time is amazing, and it remains the most touching moment of my life.

I'm a father myself for the first time in my life, and I had very very loving parents.

I discovered photography completely by chance. My wife is an architect; when we were young and living in Paris, she bought a camera to take pictures of buildings. For the first time, I looked through a lens - and photography immediately started to invade my life.