We used to build civilizations. Now we build shopping malls.

If you believe in god, it's much more fantastic to believe that he created this universe billions of years ago and set in motion this long train of activities that eventually resulted in us. I think that's so much more satisfying, more thrilling, than the idea that it was all done in seven days.

We are so used to the notion of our own inevitability as life's dominant species that it is hard to grasp that we are here only because of timely extraterrestrial bangs and other random flukes. The one thing we have in common with all other living things is that for nearly four billions years our ancestors have managed to slip through a series of closing doors every time we needed them to.

Romans park their cars the way I would park if I had just spilled a beaker of hydrochloric acid on my lap.

I'm definitely an American, because I grew up here. But I've lived very happily in Britain.

Human beings would split the atom and invent television, nylon, and instant coffee before they could figure out the age of their own planet.

Because time moves more slowly in Kid World ... it goes on for decades ... It is adult life that is over in a twinkling.