All I say is that I think it is damned unlikely that anything like a central cosmic will, a spirit world, or an eternal survival of personality exist. They are the most preposterous and unjustified of all the guesses which can be made about the universe, and I am not enough of a hair-splitter to pretend that I don't regard them as arrant and negligible moonshine. In theory I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of radical evidence I must be classed, practically and provisionally, as an atheist.

To the scientist there is the joy in pursuing truth which nearly counteracts the depressing revelations of truth.

Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness.

I like coffee exceedingly.

I am a student of life, and don't want to miss any experience. There's poetry in this sort of thing, you know--or perhaps you don't know, but it's all the same.

The darkness always teemed with unexplained sound - and yet he sometimes shook with fear lest the noises he heard subside and allow him to hear certain other fainter noises which he suspected were lurking behind them.

There are black zones of shadow close to our daily paths, and now and then some evil soul breaks a passage through. When that happens, the man who knows must strike before reckoning the consequences.