Younger people have so many opportunities. I don't see any pessimism among them.

I think it's a big mistake to decide too soon what you're going to do with your life.

For me, science is just a bunch of tools - it's like playing the violin. I just enjoy calculating, and it's an instrument I know how to play. It's almost an athletic performance, in a way. I was just watching the Olympics, and that's how I feel when proving a theorem.

If you want to have a program for moving out into the universe, you have to think in centuries not in decades.

So long as you have courage and a sense of humor, it is never too late to start life afresh.

The technologies which have had the most profound effects on human life are usually simple.

We have these amazing gifts of music and mathematics and painting and Olympic running. I mean, we're the animal that is best of all the animals at long-distance running. Why? It is quite amazing. Superfluous gifts you don't really need to survive.