I can remember at the age of about six being fascinated by the planets and learning all about Mars and Venus and things.

If it is solely an evolutionary convenience, there is really no such thing as good or evil.

Cheetah genes cooperate with cheetah genes but not with camel genes, and vice versa. This is not because cheetah genes, even in the most poetic sense, see any virtue in the preservation of the cheetah species. They are not working to save the cheetah from extinction like some molecular World Wildlife Fund.

When I sign books, I get lines of people and what they usually say is: "Thank you. You have changed my life." I am really moved by that.

Good and evil - I don't believe that there is hanging out there, anywhere, something called good and something called evil.

By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out. -this quote is actually found in Carl Sagan's book The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, where he attributes it to engineer James Oberg, who says he stole it from someone else.

Never say, and never take seriously anyone who says, 'I cannot believe that so-and-so could have evolved by gradual selection.' I have dubbed this kind of fallacy 'the Argument from Personal Incredulity.' Time and again, it has proven the prelude to an intellectual banana-skin experience.