What is a scientist after all? It is a curious man looking through a keyhole, the keyhole of nature, trying to know what's going on.

The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.

Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.

From birth, man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders. He is bolted to earth. But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free.

For most of history, man has had to fight nature to survive; in this century he is beginning to realize that, in order to survive, he must protect it.

The future is in the hands of those who explore... and from all the beauty they discover while crossing perpetually receding frontiers, they develop for nature and for humankind an infinite love.

The reason I love the sea I cannot explain - it's physical. When you dive you begin to feel like an angel. It's a liberation of your weight.

The best way to observe a fish is to become a fish.

The sea, the great unifier, is man's only hope. Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning: we are all in the same boat.

I was playing when I invented the aqualung. I think play is the most serious thing in the world.

People protect what they love.

There is something embarrassing about someone else's grief. It is hard to know what to do around it. The right answer, always, is hugs.

Most people use music as a couch; they want to be pillowed on it, relaxed and consoled for the stress of daily living. But serious music was never meant to be soporific.

I thought that I had been asked every kind of question possible.

I'm not a big theory person. So when I get asked questions that demand serious statements, I just make it up.

Bottled water costs about 2000 times more than tap water. Can you imagine paying 2000 times the price of anything else? How about a $ 10,000 sandwich?

What was lost was lost. There was no retrieving it, however you schemed, no returning to how things were, no going back.

I say that I represent this movement because my intellectual allegiances are clearly European, not African.

I think so much about everything. I'm obsessive.

I build myself back up and come back stronger. That's what I do.

All extremes are bad. All that is good and useful, if carried to extremes, may become-and beyond a certain limit is bound to become-bad and injurious.