The universe for me was other planets and other star systems and other galaxies. I enjoyed tracking it, but it had no specific influence on my ambitions for that reason. It wasn't really far enough away from Earth to matter to me.

The word smart is not applied to all professions, even if you are smart in that profession. No one talks about smart lawyers. They may say a brilliant lawyer. They'll talk about a creative artist. Smart is saved for scientists. It just is. It's not even really applied to medical doctors. It applies to scientists in the lab figuring out what hadn't been figured out before.

If your belief system is not founded in an objective reality, you should not be making decisions that affect other people.

'As a fraction of your tax dollar today, what is the total cost of all spaceborne telescopes, planetary probes, the rovers on Mars, the International Space Station, the space shuttle, telescopes yet to orbit, and missions yet to fly?' Answer: one-half of one percent of each tax dollar. Half a penny. I'd prefer it were more: perhaps two cents on the dollar. Even during the storied Apollo era, peak NASA spending amounted to little more than four cents on the tax dollar.

One of the most significant events in our distant past is still perhaps the greatest mystery: the origins of life itself.

The tenacity of life is mind-boggling. We keep finding it where no one thought it could be.

If Neptune were analogized with a Chevy Impala in mass, then how big is pluto compared to that? Pluto would be a matchbox car sitting on the curb.