Astronomers ought to be able to ask fundamental questions without accelerators

There are still so many questions to answer. When you look at any part of the universe, you have to feel humbled.

Your job as a scientist is to figure out how you're fooling yourself.

It seemed like my favourite kind of job - a wonderful chance to ask something absolutely fundamental: the fate of the Universe and whether the Universe was infinite or not

From our point of view, the most exciting thing would be if we discovered something really fundamental in our understanding was just off a bit - and that now we have a chance to revisit it

So it's possible that someday, by understanding a little bit more about how the world works, it will come back to help us in some other way that will be surprising

I was one of those kids who always thought that we should know how the world works around us

Nobody really expects a Nobel Prize call

Probably the single most important thing about the Nobel Prize for most people is whether they get the coveted parking space on campus.

It is a tough choice between ending up in the cold or ending up in a fiery blast.

We have a remarkably complete picture in many ways - and it could be that we're not accounting for something that's almost three-quarters of the entire universe

I realized that lacking the feminine, the language had communicated to me in subtle ways that women were nonentities, that women counted mostly as they related to men.

Blood was the mortar that cemented the kingdom

White privilege is an absence of the consequences of racism. An absence of structural discrimination, an absence of your race being viewed as a problem first and foremost.

As long as you're willing to be called a fool, you can create anything, do anything, be anything.

Making books is hard work. Some books are, of course, more demanding than others.

Knowledge no longer exists if one has ignored the attributes of the Almighty Great Creator.

When I was younger, I used to write to directors when I was unsure I could play a role. I'd say: 'You've made a terrible mistake.'

Listen to advice from people who have been there and done that. It is so hard to believe that when you are young, but parents, mentors, teachers, they can all be so valuable when it comes to advice.

Judges, as a class, display, in the matter of arranging alimony, that reckless generosity which is found only in men who are giving away someone else's cash.

Is there anything more useless than a crouton? I sometimes wake up in the small hours with a start and realise that what's roused me is an overpowering urge to visit violence on its originator.