Science is far from a perfect instrument of knowledge. It's just the best we have.

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.

Do you remember? Do you remember the world before the dark? Do you remember the world with mothers and fathers and stillness that did not feel like death?

Pain and guilt tore through him. His soul was bleeding to death. He stood there, waiting to die. How could he not? But such wounds were not fatal.

Sometimes in life, it has to be enough to be proud of yourself, even if no one else notices.

Universities are not here to be mediums for the coercion of other people, they're here to be mediums for the free exchange of ideas.

A man must know his limitations.

To put failure behind you, face up to it.

I’m not a vomit in the club kinda girl.

The force with which he wanted it both ways made him grit his teeth. What kind of fool wanted it only one way?

I do usually stay in the fantasy/sci-fi range, I suppose, but it has many, many subgenres that I'd love to continue exploring.

We cannot really think in one way and act in another.