People are entirely too disbelieving of coincidence.

I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture, I got out of the public library. For an impoverished child whose family could not afford to buy books, the library was the open door to wonder and achievement, and I can never be sufficiently grateful that I had the wit to charge through that door and make the most of it.

Tell me why the stars do shine, Tell me why the ivy twines, Tell me what makes skies so blue, And I'll tell you why I love you. Nuclear fusion makes stars to shine, Tropisms make the ivy twine, Raleigh scattering make skies so blue, Testicular hormones are why I love you.

We're forever teetering on the brink of the unknowable, and trying to understand what can't be understood.

I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing — to be clear.

Intuition is the art, peculiar to the human mind, of working out the correct answer from data that is, in itself, incomplete or even, perhaps, misleading.

The greatest weapons in the conquest of knowledge are an understanding mind and the inexorable curiosity that drives it on.