Imagine a life-form whose brainpower is to ours as ours is to a chimpanzee’s. To such a species, our highest mental achievements would be trivial. Their toddlers, instead of learning their ABCs on Sesame Street, would learn multivariable calculus on Boolean Boulevard. Our most complex theorems, our deepest philosophies, the cherished works of our most creative artists, would be projects their schoolkids bring home for Mom and Dad to display on the refrigerator door.

Need a distraction today? Not only does 12 + 1 = 11 + 2, but the letters "twelve plus one" rearrange to give you "eleven plus two."

Astronauts are the only kind of celebrity I know who can have a line of people waiting for their autograph, even if the line of people does not know in advance the astronaut's name.

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.

Dinosaurs are extinct today because they lacked opposable thumbs and the brainpower to build a space program.

I would expunge the word "aptitude" from our vocabulary, because if you're interested in something, that's all that matters. You'll spend more time doing it, that than anything else, and possibly more time doing it than anybody else. And that's all that matters, because in the end, if you love what you do, you'll be your best at it compared to anything else you might have chosen as a career.

I've always been interested in pop culture. Some of my colleagues think of pop culture as beneath them, or there's the ivory tower and then there's everybody else, and I never could buy into that wall that's been put up by so many people over the decades and even the centuries.