If aliens did visit us, I'd be embarrassed to tell them we still dig fossil fuels from the ground as a source of energy.

I'm revealing information to people. I'm not creating it. And to the extent that people embrace it, I think they're empowered by it, because any time you have a bigger perspective today than you did yesterday, it's got to be only for the good of your mind, your body, your soul.

Just before I said I wanted to be an astronomer I said I wanted to be a baseball player. I was quite athletic at the time, probably because I was bigger than other kids, and if you're bigger than other kids and you're 11 you win everything.

We are in the universe and the universe is in us.

Pretending to know everything closes the door to finding out what's really there.

The people that first climbed Mt. Everest weren't scientists, right, they were adventurers. If you're an adventurer, you want to go yourself. It's different than a scientist, who is simply wanting to learn.

I object to religion in science classrooms not because it's religion but because it's not science.