All your life people will tell you things. And most of the time, probably ninety-five percent of the time, what they'll tell you will be wrong.

Working inspires inspiration. Keep working. If you succeed, keep working. If you fail, keep working. If you are interested, keep working. If you are bored, keep working.

The romantic view of the natural world as a blissful Eden is only held by people who have no actual experience of nature. People who live in nature are not romantic about it at all. They may hold spiritual beliefs about the world around them, they may have a sense of the unity of nature or the aliveness of all things, but they still kill the animals and uproot the plants in order to eat, to live. If they don't, they will die.

In science, the old men are usually wrong. But in politics, the old men are wise, counsel caution, and in the end are often right.

The academic world was marching toward ever more specialized knowledge, expressed in ever more dense jargon.

Books aren't written - they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it.

I was raised with the idea that if you're not smart enough to do science you can do politics.