My wonder button is being pushed all the time.

But nature is always more subtle, more intricate, more elegant than what we are able to imagine.

National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatical ethnic or religious or national chauvinisms are a little difficult to maintain when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars.

In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken..."

The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together. Information distilled over 4 billion years of biological evolution. Incidentally, all the organisms on the Earth are made essentially of that stuff. An eyedropper full of that liquid could be used to make a caterpillar or a petunia if only we knew how to put the components together.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

Books are key to understanding the world and participating in a democratic society.