Part of knowing how to think is knowing how the laws of nature shape the world around us. Without that knowledge, without that capacity to think, you can easily become a victim of people who seek to take advantage of you.

I'd rather enjoy the money, and then be buried, offering my body back to the flora and fauna of which I have dined my whole life.

You can't be a writer and have nothing to write about. You have to have life experiences.

To view space as, "Well, let's go to Mars now," or "Let's do this now," maybe we should rethink of space as our backyard and have a suite of launch vehicles that can enable any ambition a person has regarding space. It's the same way you can go to buy a car: I want to go offroading, I'll buy this model. I'm a city driver, that's this model. I want to use less fuel, well, that's this model. They're not selling you one car, you have options. So when I think of space, I think of having options.

Every account of a higher power that I've seen described, of all religions that I've seen, include many statements with regard to the benevolence of that power. When I look at the universe and all the ways the universe wants to kill us, I find it hard to reconcile that with statements of beneficence.

When a coincidence seems amazing, that's because the human mind isn’t wired to naturally comprehend probability & statistics.

My goal is not to shove information into your head. It's to find ways to reignite the curiosity that we all had as children for the natural world. You don't have to tell a child to explore the backyard.