Chimpanzees are an evolutionary hair's-width from us.... Now imagine a species on Earth, or anywhere else, as smart compared with humans as humans are compared with chimpanzees. How much of the universe might they figure out?

When I would lose matches, I fully respected the person who beat me, because they beat me. I can't blame anybody.

Anyone who has wrestled knows that it's the hardest thing in the world to do. Anyone who says something else is the hardest thing has never wrestled. That's what I have found. ... You don't wrestle because it's easy, you wrestle because it's hard. I don't do astrophysics because it's easy, I do it because it's hard. And I juxtapose the two in my mind, body, and soul all the time.

You can't be a writer and have nothing to write about. You have to have life experiences.

I don't require that the main guest [of StarTalk] have any science knowledge or background at all. It's just, I have a conversation with them, it's long and winding, and we find out what parts of what we learn about the person lend themselves to further scientific discussion with an expert who is brought into the studio. So that's how that comes together.

When we try to look farther into the universe we come to what appears to be the end of space but actually it's the beginning of time.

You get to say that the Earth is flat because we live in a country that guarantees your free speech. But it's not a country that guarantees that anything you say is correct.