I learned very early on in life that not everyone wants to hear every fact in the world, even if you want to tell them everything you've ever read.

But I’ve never seen the Icarus story as a lesson about the limitations of humans. I see it as a lesson about the limitations of wax as an adhesive.

Take wrong turns. Talk to strangers. Open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of people in a field, go find out what they are doing. Do things without always knowing how they'll turn out.

I never trust anyone who's more excited about success than about doing the thing they want to be successful at.

You don't use science to show you're right, you use science to become right.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can make me think I deserved it.

The role of gender in society is the most complicated thing I’ve ever spent a lot of time learning about, and I’ve spent a lot of time learning about quantum mechanics.

Correlation doesn’t imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing ‘look over there.’

Things are rarely just crazy enough to work, but they're frequently just crazy enough to fail hilariously.

If at first you don't succeed, that's one data point.

You don't become great by trying to be great. You become great by wanting to do something, and then doing it so hard that you become great in the process.

Happiness when sustained too long in print can rightly be construed as sappiness...

The lovesick, the betrayed, and the jealous all smell alike.

Independent women must expect more of themselves, since neither men nor other more conventionally domesticated women will hope for anything, or expect any result other than utter failure.

There is a joy in going without things, a fine tang in eliminating the superfluous.

My grandfather is Portuguese. He betrayed what was expected of him and married my grandmother of African descent on my father's side.

We are not just our behavior. We are the person managing our behavior.

But I guessed she would never stop wanting more for me, more from me. Maybe that's what mothers did.

Many people feel "guilty" about things they shouldn't feel guilty about, in order to shut out feelings of guilt about things they should feel guilty about.

I'm not a member of an organized party. I'm a Democrat.

A nickname is the hardest stone that the devil can throw at a man.