There are two ways you can receive energy from your environment: One is molecules bumping against you. That's the air. The other is radiative energy. That's what you're feeling from the sun. When they say "Get out of the sun, out of the heat," the air is the same temperature; it's just you're exposed to sunlight.

Doing what has never been done before is intellectually seductive, whether or not we deem it practical.

We should not be ashamed of not having answers to all questions yet... I'm perfectly happy staring somebody in the face saying, 'I don't know yet, and we've got top people working on it.' The moment you feel compelled to provide an answer, then you're doing the same thing that the religious community does: providing answers to every possible question.

The last person I ever want working for me is someone who says 'that's not in my job description.

I'm an educator, and I'm a scientist, and I speak what is objectively true. And if that offends you, I can try to have a conversation with you to ask why it offends you, and tell you why objective truth should not offend you because that's how the world works.

Only when creative people take ownership of cosmic discovery will society accept science as the cultural activity that it is.

In America, there are people who don't read science fiction but still think about tomorrow, so it's not only the force of science-fiction that makes you a tomorrow thinker.