One of the chief features of incompetence was an inability to see it in oneself.

Atoms have a nucleus, made of protons and neutrons bound together. Around this nucleus shells of electrons spin, and each shell is either full or trying to get full, to balance with the number of protons-to balance the number of positive and negative charges. An atom is like a human heart, you see.

What we need is equality without conformity.

History is a wave that moves through time slightly faster than we do.

In an expanding universe, order is not really order, but merely the difference between the actual entropy exhibited and the maximum entropy possible.

Science was many things, Nadia thought, including a weapon with which to hit other scientists.

The Quran says nothing about the veil, except for an injunction to veil the bosom, which is obvious. As for the face, Muhammad's wife Khadijeh never wore the veil, nor did the other wives of the Prophet after Khadijeh died. [...] The ulema have twisted the Quran with their hadith, always twisting it toward those in power, until the message Muhammad laid out so clearly, straight from God, has been reversed, and good Muslim women are made like slaves again, or worse.