I want to be able to express, I want to be able to communicate, and I want to be able to understand what it is I’m doing, and I want the people whose language it is to understand what I’m doing.

It’s easy to try to exaggerate the problems just to get more attention. So for me, it was very clear that the best way to deal with that was to do the best science that I was capable of doing.

These tics do bother me. Could I play a match without them? Yes, without some of them. I don't have to touch my nose or put my hair behind my ears before I serve. That's possible to stop. Not putting the bottles in front of my chair, I could go without that, too. But adjusting my underwear, that I could never get rid of. It's impossible.

The way I work is — I want to not have external stimulation. You can kind of see, on the walls are this light green. I'm told that at mental institutions they use that on the walls. It's like a calming color, it's not something that really stimulates you. What you can't see is the computer here, you only see the screen, but the main thing I worry about in my computer is — it doesn't have to be big and powerful, although I like that — it really has to be completely silent. I know people who work for Google and they have their own small data center at home, and I don't do that. My office is the most boring office you'll ever see. And I sit there alone in the quiet. If the cat comes up, it sits in my lap. And I want to hear the cat purring, not the sound of the fans in the computer.

I believe that that is a fast-food myth to get us out there buying whatever they’re selling because I know that beans and greens are very, very affordable.

The inclination to pretend I read a friend’s book when maybe I didn’t completely finish.

And what happens for me is that I make a pot of beans on Sunday. And I also make some greens with chard, whatever I have available. And when I come to cook a meal or even to make myself breakfast, I may warm up some of those beans. I put a little tortilla right on the fire. I fill it up with the beans, maybe a little hot pepper, and I eat it. And that takes me exactly two minutes, three minutes, maybe. But it’s knowing how to cook. Those basic things have been taken away from us.

Peacefully, knowing I’ll be composted in a mushroom suit.

My discomfort with being alone.

A lack of generosity. It can take so many forms—it doesn’t just have to do with money—so I’m always shocked when people can’t muster any at all.