In the 1970s, I think that there was probably a higher degree of respect for science, of hope about the future, and the future-oriented vision.

Ten long trips around the sun since I last saw that smile, but only joy and thankfulness that on a tiny world in the vastness, for a couple of moments in the immensity of time, we were one.

A lot of people have this ego need that makes them want to believe that Earth is the center of the universe and humans are the most important species, the supreme expression of creation.

If you are searching for sacred knowledge and not just a palliative for your fears, then you will train yourself to be a good skeptic.

And what greater might do we possess as human beings than our capacity to question and to learn?

Carl did not want to believe. He wanted to know.

I guess I so desperately want to see us put this planet right. It's so horrifying to me that a fifth of us are starving every night, and that forty thousand children die every single day.

We smoked the way other American families would have wine with dinner. For us, it was our sacrament. It was something that made a great life sweeter in every possible way.

Interviewer: "Didn't [Sagan] want to believe?" Druyan: "He didn't want to believe. He wanted to know.

Science is nothing more than a neverending search for the truth.

Carl took on the military-industrial complex. He campaigned around the world for an end to the production of weapons of mass destruction. To him it was a perversion of science.

The only kind of love to be found, is within you. That other kind everybody wants... it finds you.

There is nothing dishonorable about abandoning pain. Sometimes peace is most quickly found when a man simply stops avoiding it.

Poison is like the drowned

Learning to love yourself is like learning to walk—essential, life-changing, and the only way to stand tall.

I returned to my existence, the existence I had chosen instead of you.

I swallowed, feeling like I'd just gotten the wind knocked out of me. He was breathtaking.

Greed harms you: generosity helps you. This is why is has been said: 'Greed is the mother of incapacity'.

In our factory, we make lipstick. In our advertising, we sell hope.

One thing I've learned, in the face of all kinds of indignities, domestic workers take so much pride in their work and love the children they care for.

Everybody ages. Everybody dies. There is no turning back the clock. So the question in life becomes: What are you going to do while you're here