It may be argued that to know one kind of beetle is to know them all. But a species is not like a molecule in a cloud of molecules-it is a unique population.

Science and religion are the two most powerful forces in the world. Having them at odds... is not productive.

In addition I wanted to write a Southern novel, because I'm a Southerner.

Karl Marx was right, socialism works, it is just that he had the wrong species

I see no way out of the problems that organized religion and tribalism create other than humans just becoming more honest and fully aware of themselves.

The solutions like freezing zygotes, fertilized eggs, of all kinds of animals and so on, or keeping them in zoos and having arboreta where we have trees, all these things have been promoted. Even getting the complete genetic code of various fishes so we can let them pass away and then we'll pull them back. That is science fiction run amok.

The ideal scientist thinks like a poet and works like a bookkeeper