We are living through a remarkably privileged era when certain deep truths about the cosmos are still within reach of the human spirit of exploration.

Quantum Mechanics is different. Its weirdness is evident without comparison. It is harder to train your mind to have quantum mechanical tuition, because quantum mechanics shatters our own personal, individual conception of reality

Cosmology is among the oldest subjects to captivate our species. And it’s no wonder. We’re storytellers, and what could be more grand than the story of creation?

General relativity is in the old Newtonian framework where you predict what will happen, not the probability of what will happen. And putting together the probabilities of quantum mechanics with the certainty of general relativity, that's been the big challenge and that's why we have been excited about string theory, as it's one of the only approaches that can put it together.

I believe the process of going from confusion to understanding is a precious, even emotional, experience that can be the foundation of self-confidence.

Physicists are more like avant-garde composers, willing to bend traditional rules... Mathematicians are more like classical composers.

But, as Einstein once said, “For we convinced physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however persistent.”5