The intelligent minority of this world will mark 1 January 2001 as the real beginning of the 21st century and the Third Millennium.

You will find men like him in all of the world's religions. They know that we represent reason and science, and, however confident they may be in their beliefs, they fear that we will overthrow their gods. Not necessarily through any deliberate act, but in a subtler fashion. Science can destroy a religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the nonexistance of Zeus or Thor, but they have few followers now.

Absolutely no religious rites of any kind, relating to any religious faith, should be associated with my funeral.

I am an optimist. Anyone interested in the future has to be otherwise he would simply shoot himself.

Perhaps no other year before or since 1984 has been awaited with such eager anticipation.

I don't think there is such a thing as as a real prophet. You can never predict the future. We know why now, of course; chaos theory, which I got very interested in, shows you can never predict the future.

I sometimes think that the universe is a machine designed for the perpetual astonishment of astronomers.