It took the Church until 1832 to remove Galileo 's work from its list of books which Catholics were forbidden to read at the risk of dire punishment of their immortal souls.

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

I don't want to believe. I want to know.

The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.

You have to know the past to understand the present.

When you're interviewing someone, you're in control. When you're being interviewed, you think you're in control, but you're not.

She looked at nice young men as if she could smell their stupidity.

A political ideology is a very handy thing to have. It's a real time-saver, because it tells you what you think about things you know nothing about.

His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

Writers of comedy have outlook, whereas writers of tragedy have, according to them, insight.

Surrendering means cleansing yourself completely, getting completely detached. Detachment is the only way you can rise.

That man,' Elayne said, 'is never where he needs to be.' 'And yet,' Perrin said, 'he always arrives there eventually.

I'm just a tool, I'm just a big, hard tool.

They've certainly grown, the Japanese. I mean grown in stature, playing-wise.

The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream And greedily devour the treacherous bait.