I had this illusion that if I kind of dressed badly that I wouldn't stand out. You know, so I actually went out of my way to not look different to the extent I could.

When it comes to the world around us, is there any choice but to explore?

Both religions and musicals work best with energetic and committed believers. Cynicism or detachment would have destroyed the magic - something true of religion, too.

Basically, I wasn't properly socialized, so it made sense to do physics.

Scientists actively approach the door to knowledge—the boundary of the domain of what we know. We question and explore and we change our views when facts and logic force us to do so. We are confident only in what we can verify through experiments or in what we can deduce from experimentally confirmed hypotheses.

We certainly don't yet know all the answers. But the universe is about to be pried open.

You have to be careful when you use beauty as a guide. There are many theories people didn't think were beautiful at the time but did find beautiful later—and vice versa. I think simplicity is a good guide: The more economical a theory, the better.