Intellectual Discussions Quotes

I'm fascinated by politics. I love watching everyone from Neil deGrasse Tyson to Lawrence Krauss to people like Richard Dawkins and Noam Chomsky on YouTube.

At 16, I was in Toronto and very shy and not hanging around with anyone who was intellectual in the slightest, so I didn't really have the means to discuss what I was seeing and feeling.

Why would anybody be intimidated by mere words? I mean, neither I nor any other athiest that I know ever threatens violence. We never threaten to fly planes into skyscrapers. We never threaten suicide bombs. We are very gentle people. All we do is use words to talk about things like the cosmos, the origin of the universe, evolution, the origin of life. What's there to be frightened of? It's just an opinion.

In the company of friends, writers can discuss their books, economists the state of the economy, lawyers their latest cases, and businessmen their latest acquisitions, but mathematicians cannot discuss their mathematics at all. And the more profound their work, the less understandable it is.

I am averse to incompetency. I need mentally stimulating people and intelligent conversations.

Not that they were there to have fun—although with Kingsley Martin around, fun was never far from the agenda.

It's refreshing, if you ask me, to have lengthy conversations with clear, brilliant minds about books, art, and what ought to happen next and how. I love it.

These esoteric, intellectual debates-I want them to come to New Jersey and sit across from the widows and the orphans and have that conversation.

I'm not a social person. I don't like parties. I like small groups, we discuss ideas in my office.

It's always gratifying to share a hobby with a friend, and pining for erstwhile suitors falls into that category. In the months to come, Libby and I would analyze our respective exes with the gusto and intellectual rigor of Jesuits.

My family is certainly very vocal. They're very Italian. A lot of our holidays end with people screaming at each other across the room. And everyone's very opinionated and intelligent. A lot of my aunts and uncles are wildly educated, and their opinions reflect that. We're all very liberal.

I have very intense conversations with friends, people I really interconnect with. We talk about politics, important things. I like to talk about ideas and get people to be specific.

Thinkers are not a welcome addition to most social situations.

Europeans are much more serious than we are in America because they think that a good place to discuss intellectual matters is a beer party.

Ben and I have absolutely nothing to do with the Hollywood that's all actors and the Sunset Strip. We crave talking to people who do different things and are passionate about it.