Borna virus is not a retrovirus. It doesn't actually insert its own genes into our cells. What it does is just hangs out near our DNA and uses some of the molecular machinery to copy itself.

If you're looking for your own idea of your own identity you know the human genome may not be the best place to look for it. You're just looking at a bunch of viruses.

We really depend on viruses for our complete survival.

One of the big challenges now is to figure out just how many viruses there really are in the human genome. So far the estimate is 8.3% of our genome is virus, but it actually could be a lot higher.

Viruses don't just make us sick. They can actually sometimes end up in our genomes.

The hand is where the mind meets the world.

The reason that viruses are so hard to fight, the reason for example we need a flu virus every year is that they evolve very fast.

We may be sucking in all sorts of viruses and we really don't know the full range of them. Maybe we've got flu virus inside of us. That's a possibility. Maybe we're part flu.

Evolution is a large political controversy as to what should be taught in the schools. But there is no scientific controversy that we evolved when we talk about evidence from fossils and DNA.

Evolution has led to some populations of people being able to digest milk without much trouble when they're adults as well.

Everybody can digest milk when they're little.

If you were a cloud, and sailed up there, You'd sail on the water as blue as air.And you'd see me here in the fields and say:"Doesn't the sky look green today?

In the winter, the snow had become glittery fairy dust that had given all the creatures of the meadow warm clothes and a fire to help them endure the winter.

No one's life made sense on paper. You cannot condense a person into facts.

The American people have no control over what the military does. We have no say in American foreign policy.

It takes a moment to tell someone you love them, but it takes a lifetime to prove it.

When I was at school, I was terrible at algebra and arithmetic, but I was always the best at English and literature. And acting, of course.

There is no morality by instinct. There is no social salvation in the end without taking thought; without mastery of logic and application of logic to human experience.

Most people just give up with time and go, "I'm a victim." The only reason I've got the reputation for delays and spending a long time on things is because I just don't stop.

But the need for conflict to expose prejudice and unclear reasoning, which is deeply embedded in my philosophy of science, has its origin in these debates.

Despair is suffering without meaning.