Successful technologies often begin as hobbies. Jacques Cousteau invented scuba diving because he enjoyed exploring caves. The Wright brothers invented flying as a relief from the monotony of their normal business of selling and repairing bicycles.

That's what I learned from World War II. Things are always more complicated than most people believe.

The ground of science was littered with the corpses of dead unified theories.

The idea that global warming is the most important problem facing the world is total nonsense and is doing a lot of harm.

The only way to improve the chances for finding winners is to keep all the choices open and try them all.

In religion, you're supposed to be somehow in touch with something deep and full of mysteries.

One of the memorable moments of my life was when Willard Libby came to Princeton with a little jar full of crystals of barium xenate. A stable compound, looking like common salt, but much heavier. This was the magic of chemistry, to see xenon trapped into a crystal.