My interest in the space program has a certain purity to it because I recognize the romance of it but I was never seduced by it. That allowed me to view it through a more purely scientific lens. My interest in space while in school came about through my scientific activities.

I look up at the night sky, and I know that, yes, we are part of this Universe, we are in this Universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the Universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up — many people feel small, because they’re small and the Universe is big, but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars.

One thing in life is for certain, the more profoundly baffled you have been in your life, the more open your mind becomes to new ideas.

I don't want to die ... I don't want to die poor. Two great motivators in the history of human cultures.

You can make a stack high enough to reach the moon and back, and only then will you have used your 100 billion hamburgers. This is terrifying news to cows.

Science literacy is a vaccine against the charlatans of the world that would exploit your ignorance.

I don't know why a beauty salon would have a cop's hat and the curling irons are not deadly unless they're still plugged in and they're hot. So I'm not quite sure about that. But I don't know who remembers anymore that you can ignite spray cans, plus there aren't really any spray cans anymore 'cause that was destroying the ozone layer. So I'm - actually, I'll have to go with they chased him with the curling irons.