In the deepest sense the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is a search for ourselves.

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.

Worry is a down payment on a problem you may never have. It doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrow, just empties today of its strength.

Feelings do not grow old along with the body. Feelings form part of a world I don’t know, but it’s a world where there’s no time, so space, no frontiers.

Grateful attitude, Thank God for one specific thing daily and write it in a journal. You will be amazed at abundance of blessings which will flow in your life.

Sometimes I get frustrated in traffic. I typically start going deep with my cab driver and Twitter feed - simultaneously - to take my mind off the gridlock. I enjoy live-tweeting my cab rides.

Planning a career, I always find that such a tricky thing, because I don't have much of a plan, really.

Accept these grateful tears...For thee they flow, for thee... That ever felt another's woe.

I will say that Rick will probably die before the end of the book. I'll go ahead and put that in print. Nobody's safe. I've almost killed him three times already.

Say goodbye to the energy vampires in your life (the negative souls who steal your enthusiasm).

Explanations are a substitute for trust.

Refinement creates beauty everywhere. It is the grossness of the spectator that discovers anything like grossness in the object.