If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?

Advances in medicine and agriculture have saved vastly more lives than have been lost in all the wars in history.

But I try not to think with my gut. If I'm serious about understanding the world, thinking with anything besides my brain, as tempting as that might be, is likely to get me into trouble.

Avoidable human misery is more often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our ignorance about ourselves.

Science is a way to call the bluff of those who only pretend to knowledge. It is a bulwark against mysticism, against superstition, against religion misapplied to where it has no business being.

It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have got it.

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value the may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder.

Liberation from superstition is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for science.

All science asks is to employ the same levels of skepticism we use in buying a used car or in judging the quality of analgesics or beer from their television commercials.

If you want to save your child from polio, you can pray or you can inoculate. ... Choose science.

I was free, free from all the distress and angst i felt before. Her red string of fate was tied to someone else and my thread was broken.

I recall no arrangement, Mau, no bargain, covenant, agreement or promise. There is what happens, and what does not happen. There is no 'should

I'm like the master of ceremonies being funny, and then sometimes people you're with, girlfriends and stuff, are like, 'God I wish I had the person on stage to be with all the time.'

Many people have their reputations as reporters and analysts because they are on television, batting around conventional wisdom. A lot of these people have never reported a story.

Local economies are suffering as people spend more on fuel and less on consumer goods and travel.

But I'm not trying to convince anybody how to vote or how to live. Nobody's ever successfully accused me of being realistic.

In many cases, the decision to study music has robbed them of the ability to play music. They have lost respect for music that comes from within because they have been programmed to feel "unworthy".

Every director is so different from every other one.

You shouldn't have one opinion when you're running and another when you're president.

A few performances have been left out of the various Woodstock soundtracks and film edits over the years, most notably The Grateful Dead.