When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all.

The second half of the 20th century was a golden age of molecular biology, and it was one of the golden ages of the history of science. Molecular biology was so successful and made such a powerful alliance with the medical scientists that the two together just flourished. And they continue to flourish.

The search for knowledge is in our genes. It was put there by our distant ancestors who spread across the world, and it's never going to be quenched.

By any reasonable measure of achievement, the faith of the Enlightenment thinkers in science was justified.

It's the technique, I think, of writing a novel that is difficult for a nonfiction writer.

In the early stages of creation of both art and science, everything in the mind is a story.

If we lose half the species, which could happen by the end of the century if we don't do anything, that's going to create a big difference down the line in the stability and even the economic potential in the living world. Irreversibly.