Date: 2007

"And when and idea for additional information to throw into a discussion came into my head, it often evaporated when I was on the point of saying it."

— Engel, Howard (b. 1931)

Date: 2007

"But at the back door of my mind I ruminated on the New York visit, recalling the details of Dr. Sack's office, his manner and kindness."

— Engel, Howard (b. 1931)

Date: May 27, 2010

"When you direct your mental spotlight to the basketball passes, it leaves the rest of the world in darkness."

— Bloom, Paul (b. 1963)

Date: May 27, 2010

"But we tend to think that memory is objectively truthful, on analogy with a digital recording."

— Bloom, Paul (b. 1963)

Date: June 4, 2011

"My desk faces a wall covered with images, notes, timelines, vaudeville photographs and playbills; my keyboard sits in a small black space surrounded by piles of books and paper -- the brain disgorged and arrayed."

— Endicott, Marina (b. 1958)

Date: March/April 2011

"He poured himself a brandy and lit a cigar, and tried to concentrate on other things--his many victories, the bravery of his men--but his thoughts swirled in tiny eddies, settling first here, then there, moving as the wind does from empty town to empty town."

— Strand, Mark (b. 1934)

Date: September 2, 2011

"When we fight an urge, it feels like a strenuous effort, as if there were a homunculus in the head that physically impinged on a persistent antagonist."

— Pinker, Steven (b. 1954)

Date: September 2, 2011

"We speak of exerting will power, of forcing ourselves to go to work, of restraining ourselves and of controlling our temper, as if it were an unruly dog."

— Pinker, Steven (b. 1954)

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: September 2, 2011

"The disasters reveal a limitation of the muscle metaphor: certain evolutionarily prepared drives seem to withstand even the most bulked-up powers of will."

— Pinker, Steven (b. 1954)