Scientists and scholars should constitute themselves as an international NGO of exceptional authority.

The applause is a celebration not only of the actors but also of the audience. It constitutes a shared moment of delight.

In nation after nation, democracy has taken the place of autocracy.

Science exists, moreover, only as a journey toward troth. Stifle dissent and you end that journey.

For science must breathe the oxygen of freedom.

Instead, in the absence of respect for human rights, science and its offspring technology have been used in this century as brutal instruments for oppression.

Even in the world of molecules the civilising influence of modest restraints is a cause for rejoicing.

Science never gives up searching for truth, since it never claims to have achieved it.

Science is an enterprise that can only flourish if it puts the truth ahead of nationality, ethnicity, class and color.

Human dignity is better served by embracing knowledge.

Some dreamers demand that scientists only discover things that can be used for good.

The bounties of space, of infinite outwardness, were three: empty heroics, low comedy, and pointless death.

Poetry seems to sink into us the way prose doesn't. I can still quote verses I learned when I was very young, but I have trouble remembering one line of a novel I just finished reading.

Notes are expensive... spend them wisely

I'm a Republican, but I find Nancy Pelosi very attractive. She hasn't done a single thing as congressman or Speaker of the House that has turned me on, but I find her quite okay.

Cleanliness is very important. If you let kids make a total mess in the kitchen and then leave, you're not really teaching them anything.

That's one way to overcome criticism: tank so hard that failing becomes glorious and meaningless.

Everywhere I go, kids walk around not with books under their arms, but with radios up against their heads. Children can't read or write, but they can memorize whole albums.

I'm part of the consumer culture. I was part of the baby boom generation. I have a car when I shouldn't, a couple of computers; I can't be anti-consumerist in that sense.

Free curiosity is of more value in learning than harsh discipline.

I've been making Bass Communion music longer than any kind of other music. I don't know if you picked up a copy of a vinyl release I put out a couple of years ago of something called Altamont.