If you want to come behind the Bible and explain everything scientifically, then you're denying God's power over miracles.

I don't ever tell people what to do! Even if it seems and feels that way sometimes, I don't think I should tell a person how to spend their money. I try not to tell people what to read.

When your reasons for believing something are justified ad hoc, you are left susceptible to further discoveries undermining the rationale for that belief.

Right now people think God is dark energy and dark matter, the spirit. Go ahead and think that, but the day we can tell you exactly what it is - that it's gremlins in the vacuum of space or whatever - then what's your recourse at that point?

When I reach to the edge of the universe, I do so knowing that along some paths of cosmic discovery, there are times when, at least for now, one must be content to love the questions themselves.

I recognize that there's an appetite that I'm now serving, and I'm happy to do so. I think it means quite a bit that science has achieved this level of public interest and access. And so I'm simultaneously astonished every day upon recognizing this, and I think it's a good sign for the country and possibly for the world.

Only when creative people take ownership of cosmic discovery will society accept science as the cultural activity that it is.