My parents were not scientists. They knew almost nothing about science. But in introducing me simultaneously to skepticism and to wonder, they taught me the two uneasily cohabiting modes of thought that are central to the scientific method.

But down deep, at the molecular heart of life we're essentially identical to trees.

You mustn't think of the Universe as a wilderness. It hasn't been that for billions of years," he said. "Think of it more as... ..cultivated.

Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.

I find science so much more fascinating than science fiction. It also has the advantage of being true.

We are the first species to have taken our evolution into our own hands.

Writing a novel is like trying to solve a very long mathematical equation. Changing anything can change everything else.