How do you feel?" he asked him. "Like a military academy," said Arthur. "Bits of me keep on passing out.

It {Darwin's theory of evolution] was a concept of such stunning simplicity, but it gave rise, naturally, to all of the infinite and baffling complexity of life. The awe it inspired in me made the awe that people talk about in respect of religious experience seem, frankly, silly beside it. I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.

The most misleading assumptions are the ones you don't even know you're making.

You can't possibly be a scientist if you mind people thinking that you're a fool.

...they discovered only a small asteroid inhabited by a solitary old man who claimed repeatedly that nothing was true, though he was later discovered to be lying.

Obviously somebody had been appallingly incompetent and he hoped to God it wasn't him.

Plenty of people did not care for him much, but then there is a huge difference between disliking somebody - maybe even disliking them a lot - and actually shooting them, strangling them, dragging them through the fields and setting their house on fire.