We can make fun of hockey fans, but someone who enjoys Homer is indulging the same kind of vicarious bloodlust.

Personality and socialization aren't the same thing.

Parents provide their children with genes as well as an environment, so the fact that talkative parents have kids with good language skills could simply mean that and that the same genes that make parents talkative make children articulate.

You wouldn't believe the kind of hate mail I get about my work on irregular verbs.

Reading is a technology for perspective-taking. When someone else's thoughts are in your head, you are observing the world from that person's vantage point.

Photography is a kind of virtual reality, and it helps if you can create the illusion of being in an interesting world.