Doing what has never been done before is intellectually seductive, whether or not we deem it practical.

If an artist is reaching for the universe as a source of creative muse, then I'm there. I'm gonna say, "Yeah. Here's Saturn. Here's a black hole. Here's twisted space-time. Talk to me. What do you need? What do you want?" And I'll just feed you, because I think only then does science become mainstream - when science becomes a legitimate topic for artists.

What I’m saying is, when different experiments give you the same result, it is no longer subject to your opinion. That’s the good thing about science: It’s true whether or not you believe in it. That’s why it works.

If there were biologists among the extremophiles organisms that live in extreme conditions, they would surely classify themselves as normal and any life that thrived in room temperature as an extremophile.

Any astrophysicist does not feel small looking up at the universe; we feel large.

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

The number of people in the world engaged in this search for catastrophic impactors totals one or two dozen. How long into the future are you willing to protect Homo sapiens on Earth? Before you answer that question, take a detour to Arizona's Meteor Crater during your next vacation.