Science is not just 'Here are some facts, learn that'. There's a thread through these stories that, if you know how to tell it because you know how they connect, then it's a thread that will land right in your mind, body and soul.

We still refer to sunrise, sunset. That only has meaning if you think that Earth is in the center of things, and everything is moving around us. So even though we know intellectually Earth goes around the sun, the language is still pre-Copernican, as we would call it.

After 50 years of television, there's no other conclusion the aliens could draw, but that most humans are neurotic, death-hungry, dysfunctional idiots.

I've found that no one complains about pop culture being a source of someone lecturing to them. If someone's telling you about Kim Kardashian, you're not going to accuse them of lecturing to you. If I can explore an intersection between pop culture and science literacy, then it generally will not come across as a lecture.

For me, the most fascinating interface is Twitter. I have odd cosmic thoughts every day and I realized I could hold them to myself or share them with people who might be interested.

Whether or not you can never become great at something, you can always become better at it. Don't ever forget that! And don’t say “I’ll never be good”. You can become better! and one day you’ll wake up and you’ll find out how good you actually became.

Exploration is what you do when you don't know what you're doing. That's what scientists do every day. If a scientist already knew what they were doing, they wouldn't be discovering anything, because they already knew what they were doing.