I always wanted to be respected for my mind.

The educated elite is not without their own actual snobbery. And I kind of an anti-elitist in that regard.

Access to science is greater than ever before. There are more vehicles out there that grant the public access to science. Not to mention the Internet.

The universe has really never made things in ones. The Earth is special and everything else is different? No, we’ve got seven other planets. The sun? No, the sun is one of those dots in the night sky. The Milky Way? No, it’s one of a hundred billion galaxies. And the universe - maybe it’s countless other universes.

No one wants to die, and no one wants to die poor. These are the two fundamental truths that transcend culture, they transcend politics, they transcend economic cycles.

Where there's water on Earth, you find life as we know it. So if you find water somewhere else, it becomes a remarkable draw to look closer to see if life of any kind is there, even if it's bacterial, which would be extraordinary for the field of biology.

As areas of knowledge grow, so too do the perimeters of ignorance.