If an alien lands on your front lawn and extends an appendage as a gesture of greeting, before you get friendly, toss it an eightball. If the appendage explodes, then the alien was probably made of antimatter. If not, then you can proceed to take it to your leader.

This universe knows about me and my crops.

I like seeing how people have succeeded when others would have presumed they would have failed, and others just go along with whatever everyone else does.

We're an elective democracy where science and technology will define where the economically strong countries in the world will be. And science and technological literacy is important for security, as well.

Ever since there have been people, there have been explorers, looking in places where other hadn't been before. Not everyone does it, but we are part of a species where some members of the species do, to the benefit of us all.

I grew up in New York City where there is no night sky. Nobody has a relationship with the sky, because, particularly in the day, there was air pollution and light pollution, and you look up, and your sight line terminates on buildings. You know the sun and maybe the moon, and that's about it. So what happens is that I am exposed to the night sky as you would see it from a mountaintop, and I'm just struck by it. Suppose I grew up on a farm where I had that sky every night of my life - then you're not going to be struck by it. It's just the wallpaper of your nighttime dome.

Newton, Einstein, and every other great scientist in history...They all made mistakes. Of course they did. They're human! Science is a way to keep from fooling ourselves and each other.