We're talking about a being whose very existence challenges our own sense of priority in the universe.

I try to write in a way where you care deeply what the next paragraph will be. I hear the rhythm of prose and that, to me, distinguishes great writing from ordinary writing. By the way, I don't even claim that I'm good. I claim that I value it.

We fail in even the simplest of all scientific observations-nobody looks up anymore.

To believe in a universe as young as 6 or 7,000 years old is to extinguish the light from most of the galaxy.

I don't want to die ... I don't want to die poor. Two great motivators in the history of human cultures.

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.

Science is like an inoculation against charlatans who would have you believe whatever it is they tell you.