In Mozambique, the story goes, monkeys do not talk, because they know if they utter even a single word some man will come and put them to work.

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.

Hope springs forever.

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

I see foxes often, but always they are crossing fallow fields in the distance. Gold flecks on faraway expanses of green. Magnetic to the meandering eye. Enigmatic, unreachable.

If you can find time for [other] activities, you can make time for your goals.

The placing of the centre pawns determines the "topography" of a game of chess.

I have a friend who says the best boyfriends are ones with intimidating, good-looking older brothers. The boyfriends try harder because they're so insecure. Maybe I'm the female equivalent.

I will tell you King's First Law of Recognition: You never get it when you want it, and then when it comes, you get too much.

Under President Obama we've lost control of things that we used to have control over.

Why couldn't she be part of that family? rent a room in someone else's life.

If it's coming near the end of a chapter and I'm really getting into it, I tend to get up earlier and earlier, just because I'm excited to get to work.