The first colony on Mars is not going to be built by a private company. How are you going to make money? You're not.

The universe is almost 14 billion years old, and, wow! Life had no problem starting here on Earth! I think it would be inexcusably egocentric of us to suggest that we're alone in the universe.

The limits on your enlightenment come not from the age you stopped going to school but from the age you stopped being curious.

Our five senses are faulty data-taking devices, and they need help.

If there's some kind of rock star status, would I be irresponsible if I didn't somehow use it for a continued greater good? I'm always involved in some way with reaching the public.

Part of me thinks that I've been called by the universe, to get all sort of spiritual about it. Like, I've had no actual say in the matter. The universe found me.

But one of the coolest things about meteorites is that most were formed four-and-a-half-billion years ago, during the birth of our solar system, when, for reasons not yet known, a cloud of gas and dust was transformed into a sun with circling planets.