I think it's too fast to say that all sci-fi ultimately winds up having some place in science. On the other hand, imaginative minds working outside of science as storytellers certainly have come upon ideas that, with the passing decades, have either materialized of come close to materializing.

No matter how hard you try to teach your cat general relativity, you're going to fail.

I think the relationship between memory and time is a very deep and tricky one, to tell you the truth. I don't consider memory another sense. I do consider memory that which allows us to think that time flows.

Oftentimes, if you're talking to a seasoned interviewer who asks you a question, they may do a follow-up if they didn't quite get it. It's rare that they'll do a third or fourth or fifth or sixth follow-up, because there's an implicit, agreed-upon decorum that they move on. Kids don't necessarily move on if they don't get it.

I can't stand clutter. I can't stand piles of stuff. And whenever I see it, I basically just throw the stuff away.

The number of e-mails and letters that I get from choreographers, from sculptors, from composers who are being inspired by science is huge.

A watch worn by a particle of light would not tick at all. Light realizes the dreams of Ponce de Leon and the cosmetics industry: it doesn't age.