Avoidable human misery is more often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our ignorance about ourselves.

Advances in medicine and agriculture have saved vastly more lives than have been lost in all the wars in history.

But I try not to think with my gut. If I'm serious about understanding the world, thinking with anything besides my brain, as tempting as that might be, is likely to get me into trouble.

If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?

Science is a way to call the bluff of those who only pretend to knowledge. It is a bulwark against mysticism, against superstition, against religion misapplied to where it has no business being.

It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have got it.

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value the may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder.

Liberation from superstition is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for science.

All science asks is to employ the same levels of skepticism we use in buying a used car or in judging the quality of analgesics or beer from their television commercials.

If you want to save your child from polio, you can pray or you can inoculate. ... Choose science.

If I ever saw my muse she would be an old woman with a tight bun and spectacles poking me in the middle of the back and growling, "Wake up and write the book!

Conquer fear and you have conquered all.

It's very hard to find things that rhyme with North American Free Trade Agreement.

Some people say we're (Coldplay) talented and some say we're the worst thing ever to happen to music, and it's a bit confusing being in the middle of that.

I have no desire to crow over anybody or to see anybody eating crow, figuratively or otherwise. We should all get together and make a country in which everybody can eat turkey whenever he pleases.

Comics don't usually have very long careers, and I'm 22 years into this.

Every good piece of art... involves first essentially the evidence of human skill, and the formation of an actually beautiful thing by it.

All things carry yin and embrace yang. They reach harmony by blending with the vital breath.

You can fight against people, and fight to the death, but ... can't control the world.

Can you imagine Simon as a kid? His imaginary friends probably never wanted to play with him.