I believe that research, that you can claim that you're doing research only if half of the people, and I'm talking about half of the experts, believe that the goal is impossible.

In 12 or 15 years, there will be routine, affordable space tourism not just in the U.S. but in a lot of countries.

Usually the wacky people have the breakthroughs. The smart people dont.

A NASA astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut can't be creative. He has to follow a predetermined detailed checklist written by an engineer and if he gets a little creative he'll never fly again.

A true creator researches how to have confidence in nonsense.

NASA's myriad failures are in many ways the natural consequence of a catastrophic combination of bureaucracy, monopoly, and a calcifying aversion to the kind of risk necessary for innovation.

Everything looks nonsensical before it works.

Testing leads to failure, and failure leads to understanding

I have a hunch the most important reason we're going to space is not known now.

Look at the aerospace industry as it was just after the Kennedy talk. We were hiring like crazy. We were trying to get people graduated from college. Hey, you got to go to the program. We need you.

It's not good enough for us to have generations of kids that ... look forward to a better version of a cell phone with a video in it. They need to look forward to exploration.

A critic can only review the book he has read, not the one which the writer wrote.

We sat like that for a long while, and when we stood up, all my sad things were in boxes, and Beck was my father.

Books which are no books.

He does not show humility who accuses himself (for who will not accept rebukes from himself?), but he who, being rebuked by another, does not decrease his love toward him.

An indiscreet man is more hurtful than an ill-natured one; for as the latter will only attack his enemies, and those he wishes ill to, the other injures indifferently both friends and foes.

I took the role of Ophelia in Hamlet because she is so naive, loving, and innocent.

You let the story cool off and then, instead of rewriting it, you relive it.

Stale is stale and borrowed is borrowed, no matter how original your models may have been.

When we have passed beyond knowings, then we shall have Knowledge.

If I have any advice to give to the Syrian president it is to cooperate for the sake of the investigation or for the sake of uncovering the truth.