Science is the best tool ever devised for understanding how the world works.

Science is not a thing. It's a verb. It's a way of thinking about things. It's a way of looking for natural explanations for all phenomena.

The recent medical controversy over whether vaccinations cause autism reveals a habit of human cognition — thinking anecdotally comes naturally, whereas thinking scientifically does not.

Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.

I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe, but because I want to know. How can we tell the difference between what we would like to be true and what is actually true? The answer is science.

Religious faith depends on a host of social, psychological and emotional factors that have little or nothing to do with probabilities, evidence and logic.

Humans are, by nature, pattern-seeking, storytelling animals, and we are quite adept at telling stories about patterns whether they exist or not.

But the power of science lies in open publication, which, with the rise of the Internet, is no longer constrained by the price of paper.

I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe, but because I want to know.

In comparison, Google is brilliant because it uses an algorithm that ranks Web pages by the number of links to them, with those links themselves valued by the number of links to their page of origin.

Either the soul survives death or it does not, and there is no scientific evidence that it does.

You are not meant to serve time. Time is meant to serve you. Become the master of your now

The purity of intention repels fear.

Try not to change the world. You will fail. Try to love the world. Lo, the world is changed. Changed forever.

School is one long illness with symptoms that switch every five minutes so you think it's getting better or worse. But really it's the same thing for years and years.

It is not in the pursuit of happiness that we find fulfillment, it is in the happiness of pursuit.

The volunteering spirit of Londoners is part of what makes this the best big city on earth.

I'm not in the business of changing policies. I hope to inform, not form, decisions.

Love askes faith, and faith firmenesse.

Dialogue is the place that books are most alive and forge the most direct connection with readers. It is also where we as writers discover our characters and allow them to become real.

I am selfish, but that's an attribute that all artists possess.