I really enjoy going to a library and spending the day doing research - to me that is the most pleasurable part of writing the science book.

I can't think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything.

There are only three things that can kill a farmer: lightning, rolling over in a tractor, and old age.

If you can imagine a man having a vasectomy without anesthetic to the sound of frantic sitar-playing, you will have some idea of what popular Turkish music is like.

That's the trouble with losing your mind; by the time it's gone, it's too late to get it back.

Hunters will tell you that a moose is a wily and ferocious forest creature. Nonsense. A moose is a cow drawn by a three-year-old.

Geologists are never at a loss for paperweights.

Of all the things I am not very good at, living in the real world is perhaps the most outstanding.

Physics is really nothing more than a search for ultimate simplicity, but so far all we have is a kind of elegant messiness.

Protons give an atom its identity, electrons its personality.

Why is it, I wondered, that old people are always so self-centered and excitable? But I just smiled benignly and stood back, comforted by the thought that soon they would be dead.

With peace of being, you can overcome any pain.

The rhythm of movement is the dance of music.

Everything gets better with milk.

I always turn to the sports pages first, which records people's accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man's failures.

My hope and treasure lies above

Americans admire success. Englishmen admire heroic failure

My wife is the fact-checker, I'm in the story telling business.

If you are willing to expose your heart...being publicly private, you just may do something.

The ending is always a surprise.

When you direct a movie, you're basically looking at a story, the way you want to look at it. You bring that director's vision, and I'm totally open for that.