My whole life has been basically trying to find intelligent students or, you know, highly motivated students and giving them an opportunity to do good science.

Today, the theory of evolution is an accepted fact for everyone but a fundamentalist minority, whose objections are based not on reasoning but on doctrinaire adherence to religious principles.

Science moves with the spirit of an adventure characterized both by youthful arrogance and by the belief that the truth, once found, would be simple as well as pretty.

Knowing "why" (an idea) is more important than learning "what" (the fact).

It's necessary to be slightly underemployed if you are to do something significant.

No one may have the guts to say this, but if we could make better human beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn't we?

We're not all equal, it's simply not true. That isn't science.

Whenever you interview fat people, you feel bad, because you know you're not going to hire them.

Our goal should be to understand our differences.

The way to do great science is to stay away from subjects that are overpopulated, and go to the frontiers.

Never be the brightest person in the room.

Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal.

Keep up with social media. Twitter and Facebook are both great ways to get your music out, especially internationally.

So you say you love the poor? Name them.

The missionary spirit is the spirit of Jesus, the spirit of the incarnation and the cross.

Being still and doing nothing are two completely different things

I've lived such a great, fantastic life already, but there's still so much more.

What is it about silence that makes people uneasy?

I am no longer amazed by how quickly a man will justify his change of heart when a spear is leveled his way.

I never belonged anywhere. I just felt like a creature from another planet.