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

In science, obsessiveness under psychological control can be a virtue.

The love of complexity without reductionism makes art; the love of complexity with reductionism makes science.

Individual versus group selection results in a mix of altruism and selfishness, of virtue and sin, among the members of a society.

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

Biophilia: the innate pleasure from living abundance and diversity as manifested by the human impulse to imitate Nature with gardens.

Every kid has a bug period, I like to say, and I just got so fascinated and I had that experience, that wonderful life of being able to go out on my own without really any supervision at all. I just lucked out that way. I was trusted as a kid.