By legend and perhaps by nature philosophers are more accustomed to the armchair than the workbench.

Plutonium has a quite extraordinary relationship with people. They made it, and it kills them.

Statistics began as the systematic study of quantitative facts about the state.

I have this extraordinary curiosity about all subjects of the natural and human world and the interaction between the physical sciences and the social sciences.

Until the seventeenth century there was no concept of evidence with which to pose the problem of induction!

The best reaction to a paradox is to invent a genuinely new and deep idea.

A single observation that is inconsistent with some generalization points to the falsehood of the generalization, and thereby 'points to itself'.

There are two ways in which a science develops; in response to problems which is itself creates, and in response to problems that are forced on it from the outside.

Molecular biology has routinely taken problematic things under its wing without altering core ideas.

If you were just intent on killing people you could do better with a bomb made of agricultural fertiliser.

Every once in a while, something happens to you that makes you realise that the human race is not quite as bad as it so often seems to be.

There are only three rules in life. Traffic is real, Fire Burns and You Cannot Fly

Few can foresee whither their road will lead them, till they come to its end.

The biggest mistake is trusting the wrong people who generally are also the dumbest.

Along with responsible newspapers we must have responsible readers.

A friend you have to buy won't be worth what you pay for him.

China is starting an English-speaking television network around the world, Russia is, Al Jazeera. And the BBC is cutting back on its many language services around the world.

What's good and bad, sweet spirit, are in the eye of the beholder.

I think women are amazing and womens friendships are like a sisterhood and we should see more of it in television and film.

Did you ever read a love-letter that wasn't an evidence of idiocy - except your own?

Sunk in the grass of an empty lot on a spring Saturday, I split the stems of milkweed and thought about ants and peach pits and death and where the world went when I closed my eyes.