Rational thoughts never drive people's creativity the way emotions do.

We hunger for significance, for signs that our personal existence is of special meaning to the universe. To that end, we’re all too eager to deceive ourselves and others, to discern a sacred image in a grilled cheese sandwich or find a divine warning in a comet

Math is the language of the universe. So the more equations you know, the more you can converse with the cosmos.

It would be amazing if something completely spiritual sounding happened. Oh, my gosh! We'd be all over it. Because it's something new about the physical universe.

After 50 years of television, there's no other conclusion the aliens could draw, but that most humans are neurotic, death-hungry, dysfunctional idiots.

It's quite literally true that we are star dust, in the highest exalted way one can use that phrase. ...I bask in the majesty of the cosmos. I use words, compose sentences that sound like the sentences I hear out of people that had revelation of Jesus, who go on their pilgrimages to Mecca.

I've known from long ago that the universe was calling me. If you were one of those annoying adults that said, 'Oh, what are you gonna be when you grow up?' I would say, 'Astrophysicist .' And then they'd walk away real quickly.