He didn't want to believe. He wanted to know.

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

I don't want to believe. I want to know.

The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.

You have to know the past to understand the present.

It is reasonable that everyone who asks justice should do justice

Soap and water and common sense are the best disinfectants.

It is forbidden to decry other sects; the true believer gives honour to whatever in them is worthy of honour.

I was such a dangerous hitter I even got intentional walks during batting practice.

As music becomes less of a thing--a cylinder, a cassette, a disc--and more ephemeral, perhaps we will begin to assign an increasing value to live performances again.

Maps of Time attempts to assemble a coherent and accessible account of origins, a modern creation myth.

Humans may or may not have cosmic significance, and if they do, it will be by hitching a ride on the objective centrality of knowledge in the cosmic scheme of things.

Do not try to do extraordinary things but do ordinary things with intensity.

When you cannot be deceived by men you will have realised the wisdom of strategy.

Reverence is the sense that there is something larger than the self, larger even than the human, to which one accords respect and awe and assent.