The cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths; of exquisite interrelationships; of the awesome machinery of nature.

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.

I know who you are and I am ready. Not that I want to go, of course, but I will come." Those souls are always light because more of them have been put out.

I have to start loving what comes next and stop hating I won't be a part of it.

Let us take things as we find them: let us not attempt to distort them into what they are not... We cannot make facts. All our wishing cannot change them. We must use them.

Touring is really a weird social experiment, even though everyone thinks it's a party every day.

You see, unlike in the movies, there is no THE END sign flashing at the end of books. When I've read a book, I don't feel like I've finished anything. So I start a new one.

The difficult task of knowing another soul is not for young gentlemen whose consciousness is chiefly made up of their own wishes.

The world changed from having the determinism of a clock to having the contingency of a pinball machine.

What he had not learned, however, was this: to find contentment in himself and his own life

I have really great, great parents, and they were very supportive of me.

Because when every day is the End of Days, after a while they feel pretty much like every other day, even though you know that's crazy. And nothing is the same.