There are two kinds of comments that I get. One is, oh, you're such a natural up there, and the other one is, you're working hard up there. And the ones who say I'm working hard are teachers, they're the educators; they're the people who are the performers. It's a huge investment of my psycho-emotional energy to pull that off and to make it look smooth.

Some of the greatest poetry is revealing to the reader the beauty in something that was so simple you had taken it for granted.

95, 96 percent of all that drives the universe has no known origin.

I'd go back and hang out with Isaac Newton. I'm torn between do I hang out with him or do I bring him into the present to hang out with me. See, that might be terrifying because his head will just explode once he sees everything that was derived from his discoveries, but I'd spend more time with someone who I think is one of the most brilliant minds our species has ever known.

Nothing is a thing: it's nothing. So I can imagine a place where there's not even nothing.

There is no true understanding of Biology without Chemistry. And there's no true understanding of Chemistry without Physics.

We're quite happy with our Big Bang description of cosmic origins. But actually, the Big Bang accounts for what happened only after the beginning. The beginning itself, and especially what happened before, remains the biggest mystery of all.