If you want to make a [rhubarb] pie from scratch, first you have to create the universe.

Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition.

And after we returned to the savannahs and abandoned the trees, did we long for those great graceful leaps and ecstatic moments of weightlessness in the shafts of sunlight of the forest roof?

I believe that the extraordinary should be pursued. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

We have entered, almost without noticing, an age of exploration and discovery unparalleled since the Renaissance.

First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?

How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?” Instead they say, “No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.” A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.