George Bush, within a week of this [the 9/11 attacks], in a speech, attempting to distinguish US from the Muslim fundamentalists, said Our God is the God who named the stars. The problem is: two-thirds of all stars that have names, have Arabic names. I don't think he knew this. That would confound the point that he was making.

My investment of time, as an educator, in my judgment, is best served teaching people how to think about the world around them. Teach them how to pose a question. How to judge whether one thing is true versus another.

We live in a world where not everyone has the urge to help others... It is OK to encourage others to pull themselves up by the bootstraps, but if you do, just remember that some people have no boots.

Relativity. Gravity. Quantum. Electrodynamics. Evolution. Each of these theories is true, whether or not you believe in them.

All the traditional STEM fields, the science, technology, engineering, and math fields, are stoked when you dream big in an agency such as NASA.

There are as many atoms in each molecule of your DNA as there are stars in the typical galaxy. This is true for dogs, and bears, and every living thing. We are, each of us, a little universe.

If the purpose of the universe was to create humans then the cosmos was embarrassingly inefficient about it.